Mumbai:
Parents of students enrolled at a private school in Thane, near Mumbai, have alleged their children were molested during a school excursion. A police case has been filed and following a nine-hour protest by the parents, the school has sacked three teachers who accompanied the students. The parents, though, are demanding that the school Principal step down and the management be named in the case.
The students — all of Class 2 — had gone to a theme park in Mumbai on Thursday. During the bus journey, around 10 students had been molested by an employee of the company which had organised the vehicle, the parents have alleged.
The complaints filed with the police name Javed, an employee of Tours and Travels. It alleges the man had molested the students while serving food in the moving bus.
After returning home, a few of the girls had informed their family and the matter snowballed from there. Eight parents have lodged complaints with the police and Javed has been arrested.
There were 40 children and three teachers in the bus, and the tour was being managed by outsiders, one of the parents said.
“The parents were not told that outsiders, males, will be present, which is wrong. We thought they would be going in school buses with teachers. There was no CCTV in the bus,” a parent said, underscoring that this information would have affected their decision to allow the wards to go.
The teachers, she alleged, are denying there was any molestation and are even refusing to apologise for their negligence. “They said they kept watch and no such thing happened. But eight or 10 girls would not be lying,” she added.
In a statement, the school said it has started an internal inquiry and called off “all future excursions with the tour company”.
“We ensure full justice to the children who were traumatized due to this unfortunate incident,” the statement read.
