bangalore rape case

Child sexual abuse needs to be handled sensibly. Pic courtesy: Child line India On February 20th, the aggrieved parents of a playschool-going child shared an alarming piece of information in social network sites. They briefly narrated the sad story of their three-and-half-year-old girl child having been the victim of sexual assault in her playschool in Bellandur. The parents alleged that a supervisor at the school had sexually assaulted the child. A case has been filed and the alleged culprit has been arrested within a day. Days later it has been learnt that several other children in the same play school…

With the onset of IT&BT industry, women work in night shifts. It is the responsibility of the firm to provide office transportation to such employees. Pic: Akshatha M When the sexual assault incident on a woman BPO employee came to light a few days ago, a general opinion prevailed all over. Police as well as public believed that the unfortunate incident would have been avoided, had the BPO company she was working for provided her official transportation facility to reach home safe. There are rules in place which mandate providing transportation to women who work after 8 pm. However, the…

A 16-year-old tribal girl, an aging illiterate social worker in Rajasthan, a 23-year-old physiotherapist  in Delhi, a young journalist in Mumbai, a 50-year-old tourist from Europe, a six-year-old school girl in Bengaluru–what do these females, from different parts of the country, with diverse backgrounds, have in common ? They were all  victims of gruesome rapes that made “news”. One of the first lead stories that I wrote, over three decades ago (1979), was about the infamous Mathura rape case, in which the court released the accused policemen (who had raped Mathura at the police station) on grounds that the 16-year-old…

  Here is the story of a frog: A scientist decided to test the resilience of a frog. He placed the frog in cold water and gradually increased the temperature of the water. Surprisingly, the frog just lay there, completely oblivious to its changing surroundings—till it was boiled to death! A spate of incidents in Bangalore schools Bangalore witnessed a brutal rape of a two-year-old by a bus-driver a few months back. A furore arose; a few activists wrote about it and protested. And then Bangalore was once again riddled with shock in July 2014, when a 6-year-old was raped…

Pic: Wikimedia commons With more and more cases of sexual assault on children getting reported from schools, the State Government is under fire. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister K J George expressed their helplessness on Friday (October 31, 2014), and requested for the cooperation of the managements in private schools and the public in helping the government in reducing such incidents. K J George, Home Minister Home Minister K J George went on to say that sexual assault on students in private schools cannot be stopped by the government, as it was practically not possible for the police to…

With most school managements in Bengaluru reluctant to adhere to some of the child safety guidelines issued by the Police Department, there is uncertainty in the air. While the Police Department is unsure about taking action against schools that do not comply with the rules after August 31, school managements have not decided on their course of action yet. Bangalore Police Commissioner M N Reddi is aware of the concerns raised by the private school associations. However he admitted that taking action against schools that don’t follow the norms is not easy. "We just cannot take action immediately, there are…

Angry parents protesting outside the school seeking justice. Pic: Nikita Malusare It is almost a month after the Bengaluru's Vibgyor rape case hit the headlines. There were four arrests so far, and the fourth arrested, the Chairman of the school Rustum Kerawalla has managed to get a bail. The police say that he was in Mumbai when the incident occurred, hence he was not aware of the issue. Now this is the question that haunts everyone: Will other staff in the school go scot-free, even after the reports of the kid allegedly being treated in school itself and teachers not…

Bengaluru has seen several cases of child sexual abuse in past month. Many parents and schools are apprehensive about coming out in the open, when a case of sexual abuse occurs. The social stigma, the pressure of interacting with police, not being sure about whom to contact etc are the issues generally faced. Above all, the very thought of the child having to re-live the incident during the investigation, is scary to many parents. This write-up is an attempt to explain how easy and child-friendly the law really is towards the child. A still from 'Komal,' an educative film on…

"This time, every street, every lane of Bangalore will demand nothing less than complete justice. We have identified 23 centres in Bangalore. You need to step out this Saturday, 2nd of August between 8-9pm, take your friends, relatives, neighbours, everyone you know to your nearest Candle March centre and light a candle and demand justice. This time WE would be the ones giving out deadlines to give out the TRUE version of the case and arrest all the culprits within that date. They miss the deadline, one more march. WE won't stop." This is the introduction of the Candle March…

Bangalore parents have woken up to increasingly depressing days as incident after incident of child sexual abuse (CSA) gets reported in the city. There have been numerous suggestions on social media to tackle CSA, ranging from the naïve to the critical. 1. Password: In the naïve category is a popular forwarded post from an organization called Kids Time that advises teaching your child a password; if a stranger asks the child to accompany him/her, the child asks for the password and scares away the potential abuser.Password trick being circulated on social media. Will it work? This solution is very naive…