The Krishnagiri District Educational Officer (Private Schools) on Thursday (September 5, 2024) informed the Madras High Court of having made a recommendation to the Director of Private Schools (DPS) to appoint a Special Officer to administer a private school, where several girls were subjected to sexual abuse during a fake National Cadet Corps (NCC) camp between August 5 and 9, 2024.
In a report filed before the first Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice D. Krishnakumar and Justice P.B. Balaji, DEO C.K. Gopalappa said a show cause notice was issued to the school correspondent and the principal on August 17, seeking their response for five specific charges. Subsequently, a detailed inquiry was also conducted in the school and a report was submitted to the DPS on August 29.
Since the school authorities’ reply to the show cause notice was not acceptable, the DEO had arrived at the conclusion that the management had indulged in maladministration and failed to prevent unlawful activities, which put the girl students at risk. Hence, the recommendation made to appoint a Special Officer was under the active consideration of the DPS, Mr. Gopalappa said.
Advocate General P.S. Raman submitted the report in the court in compliance with an interim order passed by the Division Bench on August 28, following a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate A.P. Suryaprakasam who had sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident. The A-G also submitted a status report of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) constituted by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin after the incident.
The MDT headed by Social Welfare Secretary Jayashree Muralidharan stated that the prime accused in the case A. Sivaraman had approached the school correspondent in the last week of July for conducting the camp and the management had granted permission without adequate verification of his antecedents. No schoolteacher was deputed either during the day or at night when the five-day camp was underway.
The school had sent text messages to parents, seeking their consent for the participation of their wards in the camp, and received a fee of ₹1,500 from each of the 41 students (including 17 girls) after they expressed their willingness to participate. The accused, who subsequently died by suicide on August 23, had not permitted the students to contact either their parents or anyone else during the entire duration of the camp.
Children were posted on rotation on night sentry duty during the five-day camp and at 3 a.m. on August 9, the accused had taken one of the girls to an isolated part of a building corridor and allegedly sexually assaulted her. When the girl disclosed it to her friends, they too complained that the accused committed a similar offence against them, the MDT said.
“The affected girls informed a teacher in the school... on the same day. The teacher, in turn, informed the Principal and Correspondent about the incidents of sexual assault. But the survivors and everybody else who was aware about the sexual assault were instructed to stay silent about the sexual assaults, since it would damage the reputation of the school, if revealed. Hence, it was not reported to the police/child helpline by the school authorities,” the team added.
The MDT went on to state that it was only on August 17 that a parent of one of the survivors had called up the police helpline (100), child helpline (1098), and the Collector, informing them about the sexual assault. It was found that 13 out of the 17 girls who attended the camp had been subjected to sexual abuse. Immediately, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered and the officials reached out to other institutions where similar camps had been conducted.
Listing out the steps taken by the MDT so far to provide assistance and counselling to the students, parents, and teachers of various educational institutions in Krishnagiri district, the team said that it would soon submit its recommendations to the government on the steps to be taken to prevent such incidents.
After taking the reports of the DEO as well as the MDT on file, the Division Bench adjourned the PIL petition to September 12 for further hearing.
(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416. and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)
Published - September 05, 2024 04:04 pm IST
