Jaipur: In a shocking incident, a Jaipur school principal brutally raped a 16-year-old girl for two days in a row on the school premises, while other children were out during recess.
The principal of a school in the Ramganj area reportedly called the minor into his room and raped her, muffling her screams with a cloth that he stuffed into her mouth.
The child went home and returned to school the next day only to have him do the same thing again.
The incident came to light only when the girl broke down after two days of being raped and told her mother what had happened.
"I made her go back to school as she had exams but I noticed she was very withdrawn and quiet so I kept asking her what had happened. That's when she told me how he had raped her. This teacher has violated our trust. Our child studied here for five years," the victim's mother said.
When the news spread, angry parents attacked the school and beat up the principal who used to run the school from a rented house.
Anil Gotwal, Additional SP of Jaipur, said, "The exact sequence of events will have to be worked out because the school was running when the incident occurred and other teachers were also present. We will investigate whether others in the staff are involved."
The police are now investigating how the principal managed to rape the girl in the school premises, especially when other staff members were present.
Raped student recounts the horror
The victim Reshma, now undergoing treatment in a Jaipur hospital, told NDTV that the principal not only raped her but also beat her and threatened to kill her if she told anybody about the incident.
"Sir asked me to keep a bucket in his room. Then he caught me and stuffed a cloth in my mouth so I could not scream. He shut the door and switched off the lights. He then opened the drawstrings of my salwar and hit me on the stomach. After that I went back home. He threatened to kill me if I told this to anyone."
The girl went to back home but when she told her mother about the bleeding, her mother sent her back to school the next day thinking she was menstruating.
Reshma was too terrified to speak about the rape but the next day when the principal raped her again she finally broke down.
The incident has now opened up a can of worms.
Children studying in that school allege the principal was a habitual offender. He would call female students into his room on some pretext or the other and molest them, but the students say they were too scared to speak out.
The victims perhaps will also never come forward because of the humiliation and the shame of being branded.
Statistics by NGO's working in this sector say that at least 60 per cent of children in India undergo some kind of sexual abuse in childhood, but most of them never speak out.