Gurugram school murder: Actress Renuka Shahane questions children's safety in schools in a Facebook post

The gruesome murder of a seven-year-old boy in a washroom at Ryan International School in Gurugram on 8 September has sent the entire country into a tizzy. [caption id=“attachment_4033003” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Renuka Shahane. Getty Images[/caption] Two days later, another case of a five-year-old girl being raped by a peon inside the premises of a private school in Shahdara in Delhi, sent shock waves across the country. The rape took place on Saturday morning, but it came to the light on Saturday evening, following which the Delhi government has announced a magisterial probe into the case. Reacting to the brutal crime, actress Renuka Shahane took to Facebook to express her shock and dismay over the callous manner in which sexual predators are able to target children within institutions like schools, where one assumes children will be safe. Raising the question of how safe children really are in schools, she wrote “incident after incident points to laxity about the security of our kids despite the high fees in many “International” schools.” Shahane also called upon parents, teachers, government “to stop making it so easy for sexual predators to get away with crimes.”   “Totally shocked, horrified, dismayed by the brutal murder of a seven year old child at the Ryan International School, Gurugram and a rape of a three year old by a peon in another school in the national capital. How do we make things safe for our kids? Parents drop their kids to school with the trust that our kids will be safe, protected within these walls of learning. But incident after incident points to laxity about the security of our kids despite the high fees in many “International” schools. In the case of the Gurugram murder there were so many breaches of security: 1) That the bus conductor or driver were allowed to use the same washroom as the kids. 2) The accused was allowed to carry a knife inside the school. 3) There was no female attendant from the school outside the washroom. 4) When the child screamed there was no one to help immediately. 5) The school management tried to cover up the crime 6) There was a huge breach in the school wall; no doubt a huge risk to the security of the school All these red flags beg the question whether the trustees, management & Principal of this school should be trusted with the running of a school at all! Today I read that the accused in the case was a driver at another school just a few metres away from this one and was kicked out after complaints by parents about misdemeanors with their kids. That school suspended his services but refused to make a police complaint. Their refusal to make a complaint must have emboldened the accused. Not complaining emboldens serial sexual offenders and jeopardizes the lives of innocent children in the perpetrator’s next job! All of us parents should come together to demand a list of criminals with past cases of misdemeanors against kids circulated in each and every school of our country, both government and private, so that no sexual predator bus driver, conductor, attendant, peon, coach, teacher, principal or trustee with a criminal complaint about child physical or sexual abuse comes within a mile of a job dealing with kids. This list should also be put up on the site of the Ministry of Human Resource Development as well as the Education Department sites of each and every state so that parents and schools have access to the list. We have to stop making it so easy for sexual predators to get away with crimes. We have to make the Trustees of this school accountable for criminal neglect in playing with safety of the children enrolled in their school. The school Principal is suspended but what about the Trustees or Chairperson? Unless a very strong case is made out against them too other schools will not take this issue seriously. A fervent appeal to all schools; please do not cut corners while appointing staff or bus service. Sexual abuse scars children for ever and a murder as foul as the innocent 7 year old’s in Gurugram leaves the parents with a life full of pain & utter devastation! Meanwhile after Gorakhpur, 55 infants die in Nashik over a period of a month because of a lack of infrastructure. Sometimes I just feel it’s time for us humans to be destroyed.”