People protest in Thane's Badlapur railway station against the sexual assault on two nursery students
The parents of a nursery student who was sexually assaulted in a Thane school have said they got to know about the horrific crime after the parents of another nursery student, who was also sexually assaulted, told them they would file a police case.
The parents then took their child for a medical test, which confirmed sexual assault, they said in the first information report (FIR) filed with the police in Maharashtra's Thane district's Badlapur city.
What's more shocking, the parents said, was the police's long delay in filing the FIR - while the sexual assault happened on August 13, the police filed the case only on August 16.
The parents were allegedly also made to wait for 11 hours before they were allowed to file the FIR, according to the complaint filed by them.
"Atrocities are committed on a three-and-half years old girl, a four-year-old girl, and at the police station, they (parents) are made to wait for 11 hours when they seek to file a complaint... Is there any sensitivity left? I spoke to the police commissioner and told him that the woman police officer responsible for this delay must be suspended immediately," Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly Vijay Wadettiwar alleged.
The two four-year-old girls told their parents that a "dada" - referring to an unknown man - in the school sexually assaulted them.
A huge protest broke out in Thane over the sexual assault of the two four-year-old girls. Thousands of protesters had flocked to the local train station in Badlapur in the morning and blocked the movement of trains.
Six hours on, the crowds grew, leading to concerns about train movement and law and order. The government's efforts to defuse the tension was answered by chants of 'hang, hang" from the crowd, who demanded death penalty for the 23-year-old school cleaner allegedly involved in the sexual assault on the two nursery students.
Lawyer Ujjwal Nikam, a Padma Shri awardee, who has worked on high-profile murder and terrorism cases including the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, has been appointed as the special public prosecutor in the case.