Nearly three weeks after the Vibgyor School was forced to shut down by angry parents due to the sexual assault of a six-year old student in the school premises, the Marathahalli-based school has finally resumed its academic sessions on Monday, amidst tight security.
However, only the five to the tenth grade conducted business as usual, with the first to fourth grades' classes beginning from Wednesday.
With the new guidelines in place, the security rules were tightened and even parents of the wards were not allowed to enter the school campus.
The parents gave a mixed reaction on the school's re-opening. While some parents have dropped their children from Vibgyor, another section of parents are in dilemma, if they should be letting their kids to study in the same school or not.
Most of the parents urged the government to take an action against the school staff, who are suspected of having either committed the mistake or played accomplice to the crime. A group of parents say that they have already send a petition to Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Kimmane Ratnakar, to suspend the staff members who are involved in the sexual assault.
Another section of section of the parents stated, "We are not happy with the management; we want to suspend those who involved in the horrendous crime, including teachers, coaches and non teaching staff. The police arrested the Chairperson of the school, Rustom Kerawalla, who resides in Mumbai. However, why did they fail to take any action on the school management or the principal, who is indirectly involved in covering up the crime. There is a dire need to change the management who showed negligence in this issue," one of the parents said on the condition of anonymity.
Rustom Kerawalla was arrested by the Bangalore police at Daman and Diu last Tuesday night, for destructing evidence. He was later let off on a conditional bail.
Vidyadhar, another parent said "It was a satisfactory meet with the management, as the management agreed to respond to our 11 demands. These include: verifying the background of the staff before appointing themsetting up task forces installing global positioning system (GPS) devices in all the buses installation of card-swipe mechanism that would alert parents that their kids were picked up or dropped with each swipe; Hiring of more female helpers Compulsory Identification Card for parents to enter the school campus"
"We also requested the management to not change the teaching staff, because children are accustomed to them, and changing of teachers can have an effect on them," added Vidyadhar.
Another parent, Juhee Garg who admitted her child to another school says, "We want to punish the school management and not the children. I don't believe that CCTV cameras will stop these assaults,. What we want to change is the whole management, who are indirectly involved in the crime. I don't want my child to be educated in such an environment".
"I already claimed that the school management must refund the money paid at the time of admission, but I am not getting any proper response from them," she said.
Another parent, Sanjeev told dna, "Before this incident, my child would proudly say, 'I am a student of Vibgyor School,' but now he feels uncomfortable to even take the school's name."
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