It has been over 18 months since Ramhat Meena lost his six-year-old son Divyansh Kakora in a drowning incident at the Ryan International School, Vasant Kunj.
During his long and continuing struggle to get justice, Mr. Meena said he has realised that there is no systematic deterrence to compel schools to be more responsible and ensure better safety for children.
18 months on...
“Nothing has changed. If a child goes to a school, it is primarily their responsibility to ensure that he or she returns home safely. But what I observed while I was out seeking fair investigations is that those who run these schools know they are booked under light and bailable sections like it happened in my son’s case,” he said.
“They know that in the worst-case scenario, they will walk away by paying compensation and let’s face it, there is no dearth of money,” he added.
On January 31 last year, Divyansh’s body was found in a drain and a post mortem later established that the boy had choked due to water in his lungs.
In May this year, the police filed a charge sheet naming the school administrator, Francis Thomas, as an accused. School principal Sandhya Sabu and Divyansh’s class teacher Meenakshi Kapoor were named as as co-accused in the case.
They were charged under the primary offence of causing death by negligence.
‘Need CBI probe’
But Mr. Meena is not satisfied. Despite filing of the charge sheet, he is not convinced about the investigation of the charges.
He has accused the Delhi Police of not probing the conspiracy angle. He said that his quest for justice is ongoing as he hopes that the Delhi High Court will rule in favour of his petition where he has sought a probe by the CBI to look into his son’s death. The date for that is scheduled in November.
In September last year, the HC had directed the Delhi government to carry out periodical inspections of buildings and premises of all government, municipal and private schools.
