Nearly two weeks after a sexual harassment incident drove panchayats of six villages of Haryana’s Mahendragarh district to stop sending their girls to school, the area’s only senior secondary school in Bhairawas village is trying hard to woo its girl students back.
A police van has been stationed outside the school from May 13. Every morning, before classes start at 8 am, the vehicle waits near a 2 km, desolate, forested stretch students have to cross on their way to school.
This stretch was also the location of the May 6 incident which sparked outrage among villagers. The van follows the girls as they walk to school and also when they return home in the afternoon.
The villagers seem to have noticed this after a week.
On Monday, about 20 of the 40 girls of class XII, who had missed school for a week, returned.
“Earlier, there would be cases of some boys from the neighbourhood, strolling past and humming tunes from Bollywood films at us when we walked home. But on Monday morning, I felt like royalty, being escorted to school by the police,” said Priyanka, a class 12 student who came to school for the first time after the panchayat diktat on May 10.
Vikas, a girl student of class 11 who went to school Monday after a five-day break, said she felt scared at first on seeing the large number of policemen near the school. “But considering what happened, I definitely felt more secure walking to and from school. My parents also agreed to let me go only after they watched the police presence over the last week,” she said.
The six village panchayats of Palh, Paal, Gadania, Koksi, Kherki and Nihalawas,which took the decision to stop sending girls to school, officially reversed their order on May 13 after observing the new security arrangements. But some girls, including the victim of the May 6 incident, are still to gather the courage to go back to school.
The parents of the victim, who is 17, are among several in the village who are considering sending their children to private schools.
“I miss school terribly. I want to be a lawyer when I grow up so studies are very important to me. Now it has been three weeks that I have missed classes. I am worried but I still get nightmares thinking about the incident,” the girl told The Indian Express.
She said her parents “tried to” speak to the principal and complain about the incident but no action was taken. The principal was transferred on disciplinary grounds, state Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal said.
The girl said she was rushing home during the mid-day break on May 6 when she was stopped by her harasser.
“A young man, he looked in his early-20s, stopped his bike to ask me for directions. After I guided him I walked on, but he followed me and started asking me to accompany him on his bike,” she said. When she refused, the man tried to force her to sit on the bike, and in the scuffle, she fell down.
“He tried to grope me, but I kept screaming for help till two labourers from nearby came to my rescue,” she said. The man has since been arrested and is in judicial custody.
Mahendergarh SSP Simardeep Singh said that while the incident was serious, it was isolated.
“We met the girls and their parents after we heard from the school that they were not coming to school despite the panchayats reversing their decision. When we understood their security concerns we took this step to ensure they feel safe coming to school. We posted women police officers around the school to make girls feel more secure. The PCR van will be there as long as necessary for children to feel secure,” Singh said.
While the 17-year-old girl belonged to Nihalawas village, her tormentor is from Bhairawas village. After the incident, locals allege that the sarpanch of Bhairawas and the block area sarpanch tried to hush up the incident. “We do not want the education of our girls to suffer. But we had no choice, since the panchayat of Bhairawas village refused to apologise for the behaviour of their boys, or guarantee us that such incidents will not be repeated,” said Zila Singh, sarpanch of Nihalawas. “After we registered an FIR and security improved, we have been trying to convince villagers to send their girls to school.”
Block sarpanch Suresh Kumar Yadav denied the allegations.
With girls accounting for 147 of the 286 students in the senior secondary school, school authorities said they were happy the girls were returning.
“The locals prefer to send their sons to private schools but the girls inevitably come to us. We are more than happy since over the last five years all our toppers have been girls. they are more dedicated students than boys. Our girls have participated in state-level youth parliaments and won accolades for us in the ‘Inspire’ awards conferred by the department of science and technology,” said deputy principal Mahender Singh.