School bus driver held for molesting 3-yr-old

Ludhiana: The police on Tuesday arrested a Ludhiana school bus driver for molesting a three-year-old student.
The September 6 incident had come to the fore on September 9, when the minor’s mother uploaded an audio clip on a social media site after “both the school authorities and the police turned a deaf ear to her complaint”.
As the incident frayed tempers, the minor’s mother, parents of other schoolchildren and various associations gheraoed the school around 10am. The angry protesters pelted the the principal’s office with stones and damaged its furniture. They withdrew the agitation around 8pm after police swung into action and registered a case against the driver.
The minor’s mother said, “The school principal paid no heed when I approached her with the complaint on September 7. The school’s indifference is shocking and so is the fact that it cannot even ensure the safety of its students. I want justice... the accused should be punished.”
The school principal said, “I took some time to respond that day as I was holding sessions with 700 parents of students of classes I to V. When the minor’s mother told me about it, we called the bus driver and the conductor. After they answered all her queries, she said she was not satisfied. She then approached the police. We again met her on September 9 and told her we supported her and that the law would take its course. We assured her all cooperation in bringing the guilty to book.”
As the school had declared an off on Tuesday, only management committee was present on the campus.
The mother of the minor, a nursery student, said the school bus usually dropped her daughter home by 12.15pm. But on September 6, the bus came at 12.40pm. When she went to pick up her daughter, she found her unconscious. Her daughter gained consciousness around 7am the next day and complained of pain in her lower body. “I took her to a hospital and doctors said she might have been molested. I immediately went to her school and sought CCTV footage of the bus, but the school alleged that its memory card was broken,” she added.
Mullanpur SHO Harjinder Singh said, “We have arrested the driver, who had joined the school five months ago and is father of a two-year-old girl, under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the IPC and Section 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. It is yet to be ascertained where the incident took place. We will check his call details. DSP Harkamal Kaur will look into the case.”
On why the case was not filed on September 7, when the minor’s mother claimed to have approached the police, the SHO said, “Her mother came on September 8 and not September 7 and gave a written complaint. As she had doubts, we recommended a medical examination from civil hospital. As the test could not be conducted on September 8, a Sunday, the civil hospital doctors asked her to bring the child on September 9, when the test was conducted. Though the medical report did not point to sexual harassment with the girl, we have booked the driver.”
Refuting the allegations of pressuring the complainant for a compromise, the inspector said, “The allegations are baseless. I never asked the girl’s mother to strike a compromise with the accused.”
The police will scan the bus’s CCTV footage. “The school has handed over to us the GPS record of the bus and the memory card which has its CCTV footage. As the card is damaged, it has been sent to forensic experts,” the SHO said, adding, “The school authorities have not lodged any complaint against the protesting parents who vandalized the school property.”
No woman attendant in bus
Despite the Punjab and Haryana high court orders, the school bus failed to comply with the Safe School Vahan Policy. On the allegations of the girl’s mother that there was no woman attendant in the bus, the principal said, “The student comes from a distant village. Usually, there are women teachers in the bus till the last student is dropped, but on September 6, there was none as teachers stayed back to check mid-term examination papers.”