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NCW team visits rape victim

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: With the alleged sex scandal at the Primary Teachers’ Training College in Patan in north Gujarat attracting nation-wide condemnation, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has sent a four-member team for an on-the-spot investigation.

The team led by Yasmin Abraham, which arrived here on Wednesday, visited the civil hospital where the victim, a Dalit girl, was being treated for the trauma she suffered due to the rape over the last six months by seven teachers of the college.

After meeting the victim and her relatives attending on her, the team left for Patan where they would meet the college authorities, other girl students, their parents and some others concerned.

Closure opposed

Taking strong exception to the State government temporarily closing down the college, Ms. Abraham told mediapersons that the team would demand that the government reopen it but provide necessary police protection to the girls in the hostel to prevent the relatives of the accused harassing or threatening them.

The State government, which has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the rape and the affairs of the institution, is also seriously considering reviewing the existing system of internal marks in the teachers training colleges.

A high-level meeting of the government education department officials and others attended by the Minister of State for Higher Education, Mayaben Kodnani, in Gandhinagar on Wednesday reportedly considered the possibility of doing away with the internal marking system and introducing a system where the teachers would not be able to hold the students to ransom.

The internal marking system, as the victim girl told the police, was the root cause of the sexual exploitation. It was held as a threat by the seven teachers forcing her to yield to them at least 14 times in the last six months.

More complaints

Following the exposure, several other girl students in the college also confessed to having suffered sexual exploitation by the teachers. The authorities apprehend that similar conditions might also be prevailing in other girls’ colleges where the internal marks system was in vogue.

The police resorted to a lathi charge and later arrested about 30 Congress workers when the party staged a demonstration here against the Patan incident and attempted to burn an effigy of the former Education Minister, Anandiben Patel, who represents Patan constituency in the Assembly.

Similar demonstrations were organised by the Congress and other parties in several other parts of the state demanding “death penalty” for the accused teachers.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad held demonstrations, demanding “exemplary punishment.”

The Bahujan Samaj Party condemned the incident and demanded a CBI inquiry.

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