Dehradun: Private school allegedly refuses admission to girl because she was raped
The family’s lawyer have written to Uttarakhand’s chief minister and education minister seeking ‘strict legal action’ against the school.
A private school in Dehradun allegedly denied admission to a 16-year-old girl because four students of her former boarding school in the same city had gangraped her. The family’s lawyer has demanded that the school’s Central Board of Secondary Education certification be cancelled, the Hindustan Times reported on Friday.
Advocate Aruna Negi Chauhan wrote a letter on behalf of the girl’s parents to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and Education Minister Arvind Pandey urging them to take “strict legal action” against the institution. She added that while many private schools in the city had refused the teenager admission without giving any explanation, the school in question explicitly told her parents that they could not enrol a rape survivor.
“The girl was finally given admission in a school in another city,” Chauhan said, according to The Indian Express.
“The biggest question is that how did the school get to know the child was raped. By law, her identity has to be protected. We want the police to investigate who is behind this.”
Chauhan demanded that the CBSE cancel the school’s affiliation, but the board’s regional director Ranveer Singh claimed it was an institution’s prerogative whether to grant or deny admission. A senior police officer claimed that the girl is weak in studies, but added that the denial of admission is being investigated.
Four students of the girl’s former boarding school allegedly raped her on August 14. The matter came to light on September 16, after Dehradun’s Senior Superintendent of Police Nivedita Kureti received information about the alleged rape and ordered an investigation. On September 18, the accused were produced before a juvenile court.
The school’s director, principal, administration officer, his wife, and the hostel caretaker were also arrested and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for allegedly destroying evidence related to the crime. On September 19, six people, including an adult student, were sent to judicial custody.