To

The Principal and all members of the Staff and Management,

G.D. Birla Centre for Education,
118, N.S.C Bose Road, Tollygunge,
Calcutta- 700040
Respected Sir/ Maam,
On Monday, November 10, 2014 there emerged in the media, reports of alleged sexual abuse of a
young student of G.D.Birla Centre for Education, while in school custody. Since then there have
been reports of various statements made by the school spokesperson(s) and of parents agitating
near the school premises. As alumni of this institution, and concerned citizens, many of us have
been following the reports with dismay, disbelief and indeed disappointment. We write this
letter, addressed to the school management and all staff members (but also available to the
general public), to bring up our points of concern regarding how the allegations have been dealt
with.
Given the contradictory nature of the newspaper reports, and the generally sensationalist nature
of the media, we will restrict ourselves to responding to the official statement (the only
statement made available to the public uploaded on http://postimg.org/image/sjeqa45w3/) the
school has made. The school, in the Press Statement dated 10th November, 2014, states that it has
received a complaint that a child who is a Lower Infant student had been sexually abused while
in the custody of the school. There have been television reports of the suspension of a staff, which
the letter doesnt talk of at all.
On receiving a complaint of sexual abuse, the school authorities come under a legal duty to report
the matter to the police. According to Section 19 of the Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences Act, 2012, any person who has apprehension that an offence has been committed under
the Act shall provide information to the local police or Juvenile Police Unit. A person who fails
to report the commission of an offence, particularly a head of an institution, may be punished
with up to one years imprisonment and fine.
This has been reiterated by the Supreme Court which in Shankar Kisanrao Khade vs State Of
Maharashtra issued these extremely clear directions:
The persons in-charge of the schools/educational institutions, special homes,
children homes, shelter homes, hostels, remand homes, jails etc. or wherever
children are housed, if they come across instances of sexual abuse or assault on a
minor child which they believe to have committed or come to know that they are
being sexually molested or assaulted are directed to report those facts keeping
upmost secrecy to the nearest S.J.P.U. or local police, and they, depending upon
the gravity of the complaint and its genuineness, take appropriate follow up action
casting no stigma to the child or to the family members.
Nowhere does the law say that the educational institution should first carry out its own internal
investigation. This was a clear violation of the legal and moral principles involved. Sexual abuse
of a child is a heinous offence, not something to be hushed up. Child sexual abuse has continued
to remain rampant in the country partly due to attitudes such as this where the first instinct is to
bury the matter. Delay in reporting almost always ensures that the offendor(s) goes scot-free, as
medical evidence is lost and witnesses statements become less clear.
The procedure followed in the conduct of the inquiry was as misjudged as the institution of the
proceedings. The school in its Press Statement says that the child was asked to identify the
perpetrator out of the ayahs and sweepers employed at the school, at which point she made
contradictory statements and one person made her scared.

These proceedings were again in clear violation of the Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences Act, 2012. Section 24(4) of the Act says that while recording the statement of the child,
it should be ensured that at no point of time the child come(s) in contact in any with the
accused. Having usurped the powers of the competent authorities and begun conducting
investigations themselves, the least the school authorities could do was ensure that the
appropriate methods ensuring the protection of the child was followed.
The Press Statement mentions several times that the childs statement was contradictory and
made the authorities confused. We are unsure whether this is supposed to be some form of
justification of the schools conduct in this matter. If so, we would like to point out that a child is
naturally scared and confused in her statement, and it should be up to trained authorities to
ascertain the truth, which the school was not equipped to do.
The Supreme Court has on multiple occasions stressed the need to prevent pressure from being
placed on a child victim of sexual assault when the attainment of truth depends entirely on her
ability to control her fear, her shame and the horror of being face to face with the accused when
she must describe her abuse in a compelling and coherent manner. The account provided in the
Press Statement does not reassure the reader that due attention was paid to this when the
school conducted its inquiries.
We ask that the school take responsibility for the lapses pointed out above in this instance, and
work on creating and publishing child safety policies that establish processes to take care of any
situations like this in the future. As a starting point to this discussion, we have attached the Delhi
Commission for Protection of Child Rights Guidelines for Prevention of Child Abuse, which, inter
alia, require every educational institution to
(a) Have a Child Protection Policy with established complaint procedures in accordance with
existing laws
(b) Institute a child abuse monitoring committee with at least one independent person with
experience of child rights issues and two student representatives
(c) Conduct training for staff on appropriate behavior and for children to recognise and respond
to suspicious or predatory behavior
(d) Instill specific measures to prevent abuse on school transport facilities.
As alumni, we, the undersigned, feel we are part of the GD Birla family, and have a duty not only
to point out its shortcomings, but also to help overcome them in whatever manner we can. If the
school is serious about addressing such issues in the future, we are sure it can call upon its
alumni, some of who have been working in the areas of child rights and protection, to render
their assistance and support.
We hope that the authorities will take our intervention in the right spirit and act upon them
speedily. We would further like to condemn any cases of physical or verbal violence and assault
against staff members (teaching or non-teaching) of the school by agitating parents and
protestors. While we believe in upholding the right of all citizens to peaceful protest, we have
found reports of violence against school employees to be disturbing and unacceptable.
On a separate but relevant note we would like to exert that our intervention is in no way an
opposition to the schools longstanding practice of organising Spectrum, or a comment on the
general level of commitment and competency of the teaching and non-teaching staff. While these
are issues that have entered the public debate on this matter and have often been conflated with
the allegation of child sexual abuse, we strongly believe that they should be treated as entirely
separate questions. The conflation of this particular allegation with other issues only serves to
obscure objectivity and dilute the importance it deserves.
Yours sincerely,
The undersigned concerned alumni.