If colleagues at workplaces, people in live buses, autorickshaws were not enough, even schools and those who manage it have become a threat to the society and especially children.
Every new day we hear same old repeated stories about children being physically and mentally abused in schools. Now there is a new lead in a year old case of 3-year-old’s sexual harassment.
Back in early 2017, the trustee of Andheri Mumbai’s international school was accused of harassing a 3 YO kid. He was under police remand till November 2017 and was bailed out on 14 Nov. However, he was not given a clean chit by the police.
Soon after getting bailed out, he started visiting the school again which scared the parents of children studying there.
A parent recently wrote an email to the school management in which she shared her feelings regarding the matter and how she feels scared of the situation. She wrote-
“My heart has been filled with dread at the thought of our children being exposed to various conversations surrounding the events in the past 6-8 months. Some of the children have been using phrases like ‘he was in jail’, which has shocked a lot of us. I do not wish the children to be exposed to the darkness surrounding this case. If the kids in pre-primary are saying these things, without truly understanding the horror of these words, then I’m sure the older kids are going through worse.”
Further talking about the school policies she suggested that the accused must remain away from school until a proper investigation is conducted.
The parent soon got the reply from 56-year-old trustee who is also a French national. While in the reply he tried to prove that he was innocent, he also compared himself with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. He said that he is paying the price of working for the well being of children all his life.
Imagine the young Indian minds being terrorised at the thought of meeting Mahatma Gandhi, knowing that he had been in custody; imagine the plight of the young South African minds terrorised when being told about Nelson Mandela’s years in jail. Imagine the schoolchildren’s minds, amused at the fact that the trustee was in jail.
Our young schoolchildren’s minds are terrorised by what they hear, not by the truth, never. Tell them that the trustee was remanded to judicial custody for being wrongly accused of an action that he has in fact been fighting against for decades. Tell them that he has spent half his life to create a space where kids can roam freely without fear and had to pay a price for it.
Read it [the policy] carefully. The policy states that an investigation will be carried out and, till then, the accused is asked to stay away from the school. It refers to an internal investigation, and not police investigation. In my case, they [police] had already stepped in before we could conduct an internal investigation. What better investigation could one have asked for?
He further added-
For six months, I stayed away for the investigation to be conducted in a fair manner. I was then released on bail. Do you think the Hon’ble Court would have released me if I were a danger to society?
What are your thoughts on it?