Dehradun Gang Rape: The Crime and the Cover-Up

After 4 students in a Dehradun school gang-raped a minor, school authorities allegedly tried to cover-up the crime.

The class 10 girl was gangraped by fellow students at a boarding school in Sahaspur in Dehradun district.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Six accused including five staff members and one student, who is an adult, were sent to 14 days judicial custody, and three minor students were sent to a juvenile correctional home, on Wednesday, 19 September, in the case of a gang rape of a Class 10 student in Dehradun.

WHAT WE KNOW

• A Class 10 girl was allegedly gang-raped by fellow students at a boarding school in Sahaspur in Dehradun, and the matter was kept under wraps by the school authorities for over two weeks, according to the police.
• The matter came to light on Monday, 17 September, over a month after it took place on 14 August.
• When the survivor realised that she might be pregnant, she first confided her ordeal to her elder sister who studies in the same school. On drawing the attention of the school authorities to the crime, the two sisters were allegedly threatened of being thrown out of the school if they disclosed the matter to anyone.
• Nine people – four students accused of perpetrating the crime and five members of the school staff including its director, principal and administrative officer who allegedly tried to cover-up the incident – have been arrested, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Ashok Kumar said.
• According to The Times of India, a probe has revealed that top school authorities had administered home remedies to terminate the survivor’s pregnancy and when none of them worked, she was discreetly taken to a nursing home on 16 September to get an abortion done.
• The police was tipped off by a source soon after the visit to the nursing home.
• The survivor’s father lodged an FIR under IPC Sections 376D (gang rape), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act
• On 17 September, CBSE’s regional office in Dehradun had sent a show cause notice to the school over the incident. The school authorities replied asking for the investigation to be complete before taking action.
• Chief Education Officer of Dehradun SB Joshi, after visiting the school campus on 18 September, recommended that the school’s CBSE affiliation be cancelled.

HOW THE CRIME TOOK PLACE

According to the police, on 14 August the girl was taken to the backyard of the hostel by a classmate on the pretext that a teacher was calling her. When she reached there she found another classmate and two seniors waiting for her.

They forcibly took her behind the bushes and allegedly raped her, the police said.

(With PTI inputs)