School took no action after sexual assault, allege parents of three-year-old

Gurgaon: The parents of the three-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted inside the toilet of a private school in Sector 70 have claimed that they warned the school about the accused’s conduct but it did not take any action.
The girl’s father said that the school and police delayed action and they were disappointed in both. Meanwhile, the school sweeper was produced in court on Friday and has been sent to judicial custody.

The girl suffered vaginal injuries which has been causing her immense pain, according to the father. He told TOI that the girl complained about “Komal bhaiya” on Monday, saying he loitered around her class and caused her pain. The parents didn’t fully understand what the girl was trying to say but they found it odd that a sweeper was mingling with the students.

“On Tuesday, we met the principal and raised our concerns about the male staff, who had no connection with teaching or attending to students, loitering near classrooms. We even mentioned Komal because my daughter had named him. But the principal told us that the male staff were required to do their jobs and made no efforts to separate them from the children,” said the father.

Later on Tuesday, the girl didn’t speak to anyone after returning from school and fell asleep. The mother found this odd and when the child complained of pain again, the parents thought it was an infection. “We didn’t realise that she had been sexually assaulted. She is too young to understand what happened,” said the father. The pain increased by Wednesday night and the girl could not even sit in one place. She told her mother that the pain was caused by “Komal uncle”. The mother gave her some ointment and then the parents called her class teacher who asked them to meet the principal on Thursday again. Allegedly, the parents noticed scratches on the child’s private parts.

However, the principal and school officials did not initiate any legal action against the sweeper when they were informed of the matter on Thursday, according to the father.

“They said that we needed to ask Komal first if he did anything. Of course, he denied. We then called police and an FIR was registered at the Badshapur police station. Since Komal was in the school, he was arrested,” said the father.

The parents, however, soon found out that the police were equally disappointing. They said that the CCTV cameras in the school did not cover the toilet where the sexual assault allegedly took place. Also, nobody had accompanied the girl to the toilet and so the sweeper had enough time to remove her clothes and assault her, they claimed. “There were numerous safety violations but police are yet to book or arrest anyone from the school. My daughter faced what she did because the school took student security lightly. We want a SIT probe into the matter,” said the father.

On Friday, the girl was counselled by the child welfare committee (CWC). Shakuntala Dhull, the CWC chairperson in Gurgaon told TOI, “We will inquire into the violations by the school. We will probe into why the male cleaning staff were present around classrooms during school hours, why nobody accompanied the girl to the toilet, why the school didn’t inform police about the incident, and why no police action has been taken against the school administration.”

On the other hand, the Gurgaon deputy commissioner has formed a two-member panel to probe into the incident and submit a report in a week. The school in question has 180 students studying in classes nursery to 8 and is affiliated to International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE-UK).