A 6-year-old Girl Was Raped in School— What Kind of A World Do We Live In?

But what is shocking is something more appalling.

This is a true story that happened to a girl who was a classmate of my friend’s daughter.

It was a practice for a sports day. The kids from this very ‘prestigious’ and renowned private school in Calcutta were taken to a big sports ground for practice because the school lacked any playground!

The school bus transported the kids along with some teachers to the sports ground.

When they arrived, one little child fell asleep on the bus. The teachers left her on the bus alone and unsupervised.

While all the other kids were busy practicing, the bus driver went into the bus and raped that sleeping, 6-year-old child.

The girl must have cried for help because one of the teachers noticed the commotion in the bus and that the bus driver had gone into the bus.

But she chose to stay quiet and not inform the authorities sensing trouble.

After the practice was over and the bus was on its way back, the girl kept on crying. But the teachers scolded her and asked her to keep quiet.

At the school pick-up, the mother of the child noticed the child was crying but didn’t realize what had happened until they went home and saw blood coming through her underpants.

The horrified mother called the school and asked the teachers about the incident but they denied saying anything.

The doctor confirmed it was rape. That’s when the parents of the girl lodged an FIR (First Information Report) to the police.

What happened later was more shocking.

Instead of accepting responsibility and helping the distressed child and her parents, the school completely denied it. They rather put the blame on the family!

The parents of all the other kids went on a strike and demanded the safety of their children. The school closed down for several months.

No one from the school committee, including the teachers, had the heart to be on the side of that little girl and her parents.

The owner of this school is a highly reputed and popular business family in India and they have a lot of power. So they decided to abuse that power. They somehow managed to stop the media publicity and proved (?) this as a false accusation.

I couldn’t even find a newspaper article supporting this fact, which, at some point grabbed so much attention by the media. It seemed it never happened.

The agitation of the parents and the media hype died down in a few months. The little girl was pulled off from the school and no one knows what happened to that little girl.

Life became normal for other kids and parents, school resumed except for that little girl and her family.

I can’t even think of the trauma the girl must have gone through and how challenging it would have been for her to go to yet another new school. This is a trauma that would haunt her life-long.

Although the school management could hide their heinous crime for this time but not for long. Within three years, the same school was in the limelight again.

This time, it was a 4-year-old girl and it was within the school premises. Two physical education teachers lured this little girl into the toilet by offering her chocolate and they raped her.

This time, the parents were not forgiving anymore and the school couldn’t hide the crime. The parents from even other schools joined in the protests. Finally, a CCTV camera was installed on the school premises (yes, that’s the only after-effect).

Now, this is a very expensive private school where you need to pay tons to get in and then again pay tons of money every year.

And yet, the school doesn’t have any playground within the school.

And the school doesn’t take any responsibility for the children.

Those of you who live in the western world and complain how bad your country is compared to other places, please be grateful for what you already have.

Even the small kindergartens in your countries have at least some grass for the kids to run around.

Yes, you can talk about gun control in America and mass shootings in schools. That is definitely not a situation someone would want. But there is gun control in India and yet procuring a gun is not that big a deal. Who wants to buy a gun will find a way to buy it.

But this story is not about what the government can or should do. It’s not about the political stances or even the controversy of life in a developed country vs a developing country. I am sure crime is everywhere.

This story is more about the question of humanity.

How can a man rape just a 4-year or a 6-year old child in the right mind? Isn’t there anything like conscience?

And more importantly, how could all those teachers not see the pain (not just the physical pain) and the trauma in that child? What sort of teachers are they?

As a woman and as a mother (most teachers in that school were female), couldn’t any single teacher feel the pain of that little girl and come forward and say — hey I care, I am on your side, I feel your pain, I trust you.

No one came to her when she cried for help. Not then and not after.

What kind of society do we live in?

Writer Katie Jgln mentioned in her story how Evan Rachel Wood was raped on camera and no one seemed to care.

Then think about the plight of these unknown infamous people and that too from the developing countries where no one really cares.

The rape is appalling. But the reaction of the people to the rape is more appealing. Isn’t there any humanity left?

And the tragedy is, we don’t even get justice because we lack money and power. That’s why we are left to live with life-long traumas. We learn that our lives have no value.

Anyone can be raped at any time and we have to act ‘normal’ because, hey, no one will believe us anyway.

We don’t have the power and the money to fight corruption. That’s why evil wins over good.

And that’s why we teach our children from their early childhood what’s a good touch and a bad touch and how to identify a threat.

Instead of teaching our children how to trust their teachers and close family members and how to create lasting bonds and relationships, we teach them to trust no one.

We teach them how to fight instead of how to play.

What kind of a world do we live in? Do you have an answer?

Tagging some writers from India whom I know personally or have met through Medium: Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Sahelirana, Sujona Chatterjee, Drashti Shroff, Dr. Preeti Singh — I would like to hear your responses on this as I thought, you could, perhaps, resonate with this.

But even if I didn’t tag you, please feel free to share your responses.

Thank you for reading.

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