Sexual assault: Survivor, mother ostracised, TN teacher keeps job

CHENNAI: Three weeks after he was booked on charges of sexually abusing a Class 9 student, a teacher in a Tamil Nadu government school on the outskirts of Chennai continues in his post. The 14-year-old girl and her mother have been hounded out of the locality for complaining against the teacher, who belongs to the dominant caste group in the area.
The man has neither been arrested nor has disciplinary action been taken against him by the education department.
Speaking to TOI, the girl’s mother said on July 23 her daughter came home crying from school. The girl told her that the science teacher had misbehaved with her. He touched her inappropriately on the pretext of adjusting her school uniform. When she resisted, he hugged and molested her.
The next day, the woman approached the local All Women Police Station and the Kancheepuram School Education Department officials for help. But in vain. She then filed a complaint with the chief minister’s special cell.
That’s when more trouble started for the mother and daughter. On August 16, more than 50 men turned up at their home and threatened them to withdraw the complaint. “They mocked us and forced my daughter to detail the abuse,” the woman said, breaking down. The crowd went away after forcing her to sign on a blank piece of paper.
The woman and her daughter at once went to the office of the Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police and filed a complaint. Finally, an FIR was filed on September 4.
But there has been no action since. When asked, a senior police official said, “We will arrest him soon after the girl produces a statement in front of the judicial magistrate”.
However, Sherin Bosko, a child rights activist and co-founder of the NGO Nakshatra, said, “The accused should have been arrested within 24 hours of the FIR being filed. There was no need for the police to wait for the victim to appear in front of the JM to give a statement”.
After the men threatened them, the woman and child fled their home and took refuge with a friend for a while. They then met human rights’ activist P. Kalyani who guided them to the Juvenile Justice Board.
The Kancheepuram education department officials claimed that they had sent a three-member team to probe into the issue, but that the complainants were not responding to calls or messages or letters. The woman said she and her daughter had been on the run for the past three weeks and had no idea about this.
A senior education department official, who spoke to TOI on condition of anonymity, said, “We can’t take action unless we get conclusive evidence. The teacher might be suspended or transferred if the police find that he is guilty.”
The child and her mother, meanwhile, are staying in a welfare home for tribals run by a private trust.