Fake NCC camps: Tamil Nadu government directs colleges to set up complaint box
Chief secretary N Muruganantham has recommended mandatory background checks before recruiting teachers and non-teaching staff in all education institutes
The Tamil Nadu government has directed all colleges to set up an internal complaints committee and a complaint box for anonymous reporting after alleged sexual assault and harassment cases were reported at two private schools in Krishnagiri and a sexual harassment case in a government college in Trichy.
Chief secretary N Muruganantham has recommended mandatory background checks before recruiting teachers and non-teaching staff in all government, government-aided and private education institutes.
This action comes after fake NCC camps were busted in two schools recently in Krishnagiri where an accused had posed as a trainer to sexually assault minors.
A meeting was conducted last week with bureaucrats, police and district officials where about a 100 principals were asked to undertake an infrastructure audit of lighting, restrooms and security in hostels, an official familiar with the matter said. They have also been asked to choose and train two girl students in colleges to listen to complaints of their peers and help them escalate it.
“We want to emphasise that we have zero tolerance to sexual harassment in education institutions,” said a senior government official who wished to remain anonymous.
“We have instructed management to display helpline numbers for women (181), install CCTVs at strategic locations, but we are also moving beyond that to sensitise school and college managements and bring awareness. We have also instructed education institutions to have a female staff compulsorily during activities such as NCC where trainers from the outside are brought in. They have also been instructed to have such staff while taking students out of the campus for competitions and tours.”
District collectors and superintendents of police have been instructed to hold quarterly meetings with schools and principals to review the functioning of ICC and security measures.
The state is also mulling the expansion of a two year-old initiative called the “Police Akka” in Coimbatore where a woman police officer was assigned to each of the district’s 71 colleges after students expressed reservations about complaining to their management and going directly to police stations.
Child rights experts say that implementation of existing protocols is key to preventing sexual crimes against children. “ICC comes under Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) 2013, which is for women and not children, so we need a Child Protection Policy in education institutions,” says A Devaneyan, co-convener, Tamil Nadu Child Rights Watch.
“Two years ago, the state government came up with a child safeguarding policy and now they have introduced more measures. Adding more and more measures on paper is not going to bring any change. The measures have to be put in practice, monitored and swift action has to be taken if they are not followed so it will serve as a deterrent.”
On August 19, Sivaraman was arrested for posing as an NCC trainer at the camp and raping a 12-year-old girl and sexually assaulting 11 others. As many as 41 students, including 17 girls, participated in the fake NCC camp.
Sivaraman, a Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) functionary, died by suicide on August 23. He had allegedly raped the survivor on the night of August 8 at the camp. Following the crime, the state government launched a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT), led by the Social Welfare Department Secretary Jayashree Muralidharan.
A special investigation team (SIT) team led by senior IPS officer K Bhavaneeswari took over the case. Since then, the two teams have been conducting enquiries across the district. During the investigation, it came to light that the deceased accused had conducted another fake NCC in a private school in the same district earlier in January. In total, 11 staff members, including the school principal, were arrested for not reporting the crime. A 14-year-old girl of class 9 said that she was sexually assaulted by the accused in January.
On August 28, a student from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy was allegedly sexually harassed by an electrician who was called to fix a Wi-Fi connection on campus. Based on her complaint that he entered her hostel room and removed his clothes, the police arrested him on August 29 amidst wide scale protest on campus.
The complainant and the protesting students had said that the hostel warden had shamed the victim when she complained. The warden apologised to the students and the management promised to be sensitive and increase security on campus.