Visva-Bharati apologises, girl refuses to go back

Kolkata: Two days after a 10-year-old girl was forced to lick her urine by her warden, the Visva-Bharati University apologised on Thursday and urged the parents to let her return to school. However, the child is too scared to go back to her school and her parents as well are not keen on adhering to the request of the school.

The apology by the university came in a statement which said, "The University unequivocally regrets the traumatic experience of a student at the hands of the Warden. The University further assures the parents that such instances will not recur."

The statement further said that the university was even willing to overhaul the system, "Visva-Bharati has decided to overhaul the entire Warden-Matron system in its school hostels."

The victim reiterated that she was forced to lick her urine as a punishment, saying she was not ready to go back to her school.

However, the victim reiterated that she was forced to lick her urine as a punishment and told CNN-IBN that she was just not ready to go back to her school.

Recalling the incident, she said, "The hostel warden came in when I was getting ready for school. She asked me to take the soiled blanket out. She sprinkled salt over it and asked me to lick it. I said I won't."

"I told my parents I will not go to that school again, put me anywhere else," she further said.

The parents of the child also backed the child, assuring that she won't be forced to go back to Visva-Bharati.

"I don't want to force my child to attend this school. No one from Visva-Bharati has expressed regret to us either in person or writing," said the victim's father.

Meanwhile, the mother of the child also rejected the report of the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, which suggested that she had approved of the "treatment" to the child.

"I never asked the warden to do any such thing. How can I ask her to make my daughter lick her own urine? It's barbaric. What is being said in the report is wrong and untrue," said the girl's mother.

Pointing that her daughter was still traumatised, she appealed to the government to accommodate her in any other school.

"My daughter is very traumatised. Even though she is trying to resume her normal life, every time she thinks about what happened, she gets disgusted. My daughter doesn't want to go back to that school anymore. I am appealing to the government to see if she can be accommodated in any other school," said the victim's mother.

Meanwhile, the team that is probing the incident also met the victim and her parents to seek the details of the incident in writing.

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