New Delhi:
A four-year-old girl was assaulted twice by her classmate in a Delhi school with a "sharpened pencil" and his finger, and no teacher was around to prevent the attack that left the child "writhing in pain" and badly wounded, her mother has told NDTV.
Three days after the assault on Friday, the Maxfort School told the parents it was safe for them to send their daughter again as the boy's section had been changed.
Accused of extraordinary negligence, the school today doubted the allegations against the boy and said: "We have no clarity if it took place or not. We feel it is impossible that this incident can take place."
The police have filed a case against the five-year-old boy but are consulting experts as a child below seven cannot legally be held responsible for any crime.
The mother has shared details of the assault "in the washroom and then in the classroom". Her daughter, she says, came home in great pain and "somehow bore it".
"(My daughter says)... the boy had just finished eating his food, he had not washed his hands and then touched her private parts. In the washroom, there was no Didi who could help her; in the classroom, her class teacher was not around, and here child says he sharpened his pencil and put it in too," the mother writes in a most disturbing account.
"At night, just before going off to sleep, she started crying profusely. She narrated an incident that left me aghast. She told me what another boy in her class had done to her. She cried a lot and went on the look for an ointment that I usually apply when they are hurt, Arnica. When I opened her bloomers and saw the injury, I was shocked. The signs of assault were visible as her private part was red and swollen, and when I applied ointment to it, she started crying all the more in pain," she writes.
But the school says the boy is not seen entering the washroom in the security footage.
"It is clearly seen on CCTV footage that the boy has not entered the washroom," said the school's lawyer NB Joshi. "The little girl looks happy in the CCTV footage and nothing out of the ordinary appears to have happened on the 17th with her," he said.
The mother says CCTV footage corroborates the girl's version as it showed that she was the last to come out of the classroom and there was no teacher or attendant around.
The incident has generated waves of shock nearly three months after a seven-year-old boy, Pradyuman Thakur, was found murdered in the toilet of Ryan International school in Gurgaon.
Three days after the assault on Friday, the Maxfort School told the parents it was safe for them to send their daughter again as the boy's section had been changed.
Accused of extraordinary negligence, the school today doubted the allegations against the boy and said: "We have no clarity if it took place or not. We feel it is impossible that this incident can take place."
The police have filed a case against the five-year-old boy but are consulting experts as a child below seven cannot legally be held responsible for any crime.
The mother has shared details of the assault "in the washroom and then in the classroom". Her daughter, she says, came home in great pain and "somehow bore it".
"(My daughter says)... the boy had just finished eating his food, he had not washed his hands and then touched her private parts. In the washroom, there was no Didi who could help her; in the classroom, her class teacher was not around, and here child says he sharpened his pencil and put it in too," the mother writes in a most disturbing account.
"At night, just before going off to sleep, she started crying profusely. She narrated an incident that left me aghast. She told me what another boy in her class had done to her. She cried a lot and went on the look for an ointment that I usually apply when they are hurt, Arnica. When I opened her bloomers and saw the injury, I was shocked. The signs of assault were visible as her private part was red and swollen, and when I applied ointment to it, she started crying all the more in pain," she writes.
Sexual assault was confirmed by the child's pediatrician and a hospital.
But the school says the boy is not seen entering the washroom in the security footage.
"It is clearly seen on CCTV footage that the boy has not entered the washroom," said the school's lawyer NB Joshi. "The little girl looks happy in the CCTV footage and nothing out of the ordinary appears to have happened on the 17th with her," he said.
The mother says CCTV footage corroborates the girl's version as it showed that she was the last to come out of the classroom and there was no teacher or attendant around.
The incident has generated waves of shock nearly three months after a seven-year-old boy, Pradyuman Thakur, was found murdered in the toilet of Ryan International school in Gurgaon.
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