THE HEINOUS RAPE OF a six-year-old girl child of the upmarket CISCE-affiliated Vibgyor High School in Bangalore on July 3 allegedly by two school-appointed gym instructors, has shaken the garden city’s community of parents. Since the ghastly crime was reported to the police on July 14 by the girl’s father, the city has witnessed strident protests by middle class parents, students and NGOs demanding stringent punishment of the perpetrators and the principal and management of the school. With the school’s management including its Mumbai-based founder-chairman Rustom Kerawalla, who has promoted the Vibgyor chain of 18 schools in seven cities countrywide, failing to provide satisfactory explanations, a massive protest rally on July 20 attracted over 10,000 parents and students.

According to police, the girl told them she was violated by the instructors in a gymnasium in the school campus to which she was consigned as punishment by her class teacher. But with vocal middle class parents enraged with the school management for punishing such a young child and concealing the subsequent crime, curiously, instead of charging the principal and administrators of the school, the police charged Kerawalla under s.201 (‘destruction of evidence’) and s.202 (not providing information of offence) of the Indian Penal Code and several provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Sexual Offences Act. Kerawalla was arrested on July 23, and subsequently granted bail.

“Principal Alistair Laporte failed to bring the matter to my notice. The vice principal or other senior staff should have also brought the matter to my notice. I request Bangalore police to initiate legal action against them too,” said Kerawalla, addressing the media in Bangalore. Curiously despite parents also demanding arrest of the principal, the police have failed to question Laporte, who is reportedly ‘missing’.

This tragic event has provoked an overdue nationwide debate on the issue of safety of children in schools, the roles of institutional managements, teachers, support staff and parents themselves. In this case, the evidence indicates the school’s management didn’t conduct sufficient background checks of its employees — the gym instructors were outsourced by a sports company (reportedly owned by Kerawalla) and prior to that one of them had been dismissed few months ago by the neighbouring Deens Academy for ‘inappropriate touching’ of girl students. Surprisingly, this crime too was not reported to the police and the teacher was dismissed with an anodyne reference enabling him to land a job in Vibgyor High.

“Ensuring the safety of children in schools is a combined responsibility. Parents have to become more involved with schools through Parent Teacher Associations and work together with the management to suggest additional safety norms on the basis of feedback from children. While it’s important that school managements conduct background checks on all employees including teachers, sports instructors, and support staff, the local police station should also be given the employees’ muster to conduct random background checks. However, it’s vital for school managements to have zero tolerance towards child abuse and investigate and immediately report their suspicions,” says Soniya Donison, promoter-principal of Petals Montessori School, a preschool with 160 children, located a stone’s throw away from Vibgyor High.

Meanwhile even as Laporte remains incommunicado and Kerawalla is out on bail, the Karnataka education department and the police have issued nine safety guidelines for all schools to follow. Private schools have been given a deadline of August 31 to comply, with those institutions which violate the norms, liable for prosecution under the Karnataka Police Act.

While Vibgyor High, which has an enrolment of 3,000 students, reopened on July 28 after two weeks of closure with parents and the police approving of the safety measures implemented by the school management, quite clearly many questions hang in the air. Among them: why have principal Laporte and the local management of the school been let off the hook? Why was Kerawalla arrested instead? Why did Deens Academy dismiss one of the two instructors without stating the grounds of dismissal? Why is everyone in the city — including school managements — reluctant to interact with the police? While some of these questions are difficult to answer, every citizen knows the answer to the last one.

Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)