Click to play videoPoonch (Jammu & Kashmir): Teachers have been accused of sexually assaulting two girls in a school in Poonch.
Classrooms have been locked in the school for the last couple of days as angry parents in the border village of Faazlabad have stopped sending their children to school, after the alleged rape of two minor students.
Both the girls have complained that teachers had been sexually assaulting them for over three months.
Says the Station head officer, Surankote, Ashok Sharma, "Initially, we were told that the girls had been illegally detained. Later, on investigations and statements of the victims, we found out that the minor girls had been sexually exploited by their teachers."
Three teachers — Ayub, Shahzad and Ghulam Mustafa — have been identified as the culprits. The police have taken them into custody and a case has been registered.
Medical examination of the minor girls have confirmed that they were repeatedly raped. Villagers are now demanding that female teachers be appointed in all girls' schools in the area.
Says the sarpanch of Faazlabad, Attaaullah Khan, "We have requested the minister, and the deputy commissioner to post senior teachers here and also to post only female teachers in girls schools. Such incidents are shocking."
In the border villages of Jammu and Kashmir, primary education — particularly for girl children — has already suffered a setback because of violence for years and after incidents like this, the prospect of bringing little girls back to school looks quite bleak.
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