Two young girls aged four were allegedly sexually assaulted by a school sweeper in the washroom of a well-known school in Badlapur, triggering massive protests across Thane district by agitated parents.
The accused, identified as Akshay Shinde, worked as a cleaner contracted through a third-party company and was arrested after the parents insisted on filing a formal complaint despite initial attempts by the police to play down the issue by delaying filing of the FIR for over 12 hours.
The parents, demanding capital punishment for the culprit, called for a shutdown of Badlapur city and halted local trains on Tuesday by protesting on the tracks, disrupting the local railway schedule between Kalyan and Karajat.
Taking cognisance of the incident, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has decided to send a team to Badlapur for investigation.
The school, meanwhile, issued a public statement expressing regret over the incident, acknowledging the serious lapses in safeguarding students. The administration promised to install additional CCTV cameras throughout the campus and implement stringent safety measures to prevent such incidents in the future. They also assured full cooperation with the authorities.
However, this did not cut ice with the parents and the management was forced to suspend the principal. The teacher in-charge of the class that the girls studied in and the two attendants responsible for escorting students to the washroom have also been dismissed. The school’s administration has also terminated its contract with the company that employed the accused and blacklisted the contractor.
Schools in the area remained closed on Tuesday in solidarity with the protesting parents.
The incident also led to administrative changes within the local police force as the senior police inspector of Badlapur police station, who was accused of attempting to suppress the case, was immediately transferred. The parents had alleged that they were forced to wait for over 12 hours to file an FIR.
The cases, coming close on the heels of the RG Kar Hospital rape and murder, have once again exposed the lack of safety for women across age groups in the country. Politicians cutting across party lines condemned the incident, with Maharashtra’s home minister Devendra Fadnavis ordering Thane police commissioner to submit a proposal to expedite the case.
Chief minister Eknath Shinde requested protesters to not block tracks. “I have asked police to make this case water-tight. We will not spare anyone, be it a police officer or school administration,” he said.
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