BHOPAL: An eight-year-old student of Saraswati Shishu Mandir school was abducted from near the school gate and later sexually assaulted by unidentified accused in Mandsaur district of BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. The Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools are run across the country by Vidya Bharti, the education wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ruling BJP's parent body. Surprisingly, the CCTV cameras installed at the school were not working properly when the incident happened, as the wiring of the cameras had been nibbled by rats. It now remains to be seen whether the BJP government in the state acts against the school or not for improper functioning of the installed CCTVs.
After the November 2017 murder of a Class II student at Ryan International School in Gurugram (Haryana), the MP School Education Department had issued set of security guidelines for schools, which included installation of properly functional CCTV cameras in school premises. The Class III student, who is the daughter of a flower-seller was found missing from the school located at the Bharat Mata Square in Mandsaur town (400-plus km from Bhopal) when her father went to fetch her from the school around half an hour later at 5.45 pm on Tuesday.
The girl's school bag, water bottle and an empty beer bottle were found at the spot where the girl was traced abandoned on Wednesday afternoon, informed sources said. The little girl was found abandoned in the bushes in Lakshman Gate locality (around 500 meters from her school) by the police on Wednesday afternoon. "She has sustained multiple injuries in various parts of the body and primary probe suggests she has been sexually assaulted. A case has been lodged in the matter and multiple teams have been constituted to track and nab the culprit," said SP of Mandsaur district Manoj Kumar Singh. "The girl's condition is stable and she has been sent for treatment to Indore. She has sustained wounds all around her body, which narrates the brutality perpetrated with her," said Singh.
On Tuesday evening the girl's father arrived around half an hour late to fetch her daughter back from school at around 5.45 pm, but couldn't find her anywhere. Subsequent enquiry revealed that the little girl had already left the school with another man. "Another student at the school told the teachers and girl's father that the Class III student girl had left the school with the uncle wearing an orange T-Shirt. She first walked behind the unidentified man and then was taken away by him on his shoulders," said Mukesh Pathak a staff member of the school.
Surprisingly the CCTV cameras installed at the school's gate were not functioning properly, when the alleged incident happened. "Rats have nibbled the wiring connecting the CCTV cameras, owing to which they are not working properly. Maintenance work is on to repair the problem," Pathak told journalists at the school on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the police have retrieved CCTV footage of the schoolgirl walking behind the suspect from another CCTV camera elsewhere on the route between the school and the Lakshman Gate.