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Preyed on by school principal, minor girls fight back
The principal was arrested on November 4, and a total of 142 girls have since come forward with their stories of abuse and exploitation.
Jind: The modest two-room home is old, weathered, and eerily quiet. The only background sound is from a persistently creaking fan. She sits on a chair, thin and frail, her eyes barely leaving the floor, her voice struggling to escape her tears.
The walls are plagued by seepage, the small bed is unkempt, the musty sheets are crumpled. The lone window, obscured by a layer of dust, struggles to invite sunlight. It’s a dark room where the silence echoes the whispers of her silent struggle.
But, one day, she decided she would be silent no more.
She is 15 years old, a Class 11 student at a government girls’ school in a village in Jind, in the heart of rural Haryana. Her school was meant to give her the path to an education, and a better life. Instead, for four years, the man who led that school — a serial sexual offender — preyed on her. The principal was powerful, and she was afraid of social stigma. When she confided in her parents, they told her they’d stop her education if she revealed the truth.
READ | Five girls record statements, new sections added against Jind school principal
She was not the only one.
In the seven years that 56-year-old Kartar Singh was principal of the school, there were several other victims. And on August 31, 15 targets of his predatory behaviour banded together to write a five-page letter addressed to the most powerful offices in the country -- the President of India, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India, the Haryana governor, and the state education minister.
“We were chosen through the CCTV’s installed in our classes. The most beautiful, or the most vulnerable, were picked by him and summoned to his room. Some were molested, others blackmailed. Some were sexually harassed. The threat of being expelled or shamed was used to keep us quiet,” said the letter, scrawled in Hindi, in black ink, across five white sheets. A desperate cry for help.
“We were left with no other option to stop the continuous torture. He would call us into his room, touch us, and talk in dirty language. If we objected, he would show us CCTV footage of us using our phones in class, or some other minor infringement, and threaten to tell our parents. He said he would call them and tell them stories that we were involved with boys and get us rusticated. For so long, all we could do was to let him have his way with us,” the 15-year-old said.
READ | Jind students being pressured to withdraw plaint against principal: Women’s panel chief
Despite the letter, there was administrative delay. Barely anything appeared to move for two months. Finally, on November 4, catharsis began. The man who was incessantly and systematically harassing the students in his own school was arrested, and horror stories began tumbling into the open. At last count, 142 girls had recounted their grisly stories of abuse and exploitation to the authorities.
HT met with 16 girls in the villages in and around the school to put together an account of serial abuse that lasted for the seven-year tenure of Kartar Singh starting in 2017. The man has been arrested, but most of his victims were hesitant to speak, often silenced by the watchful eyes of their conservative families. Still, some did.
Cries for help
Another of the man’s victims is also a Class 11 student, who said that for the six years the principal abused his students, buying their silence with fear. “He has political backing, and could harm us and our families. So we decided to write to the PMO for help anonymously, and asked for the case to be investigated by authorities in Chandigarh and New Delhi. We asked that girls be called one after another to record our statements, and not in the presence of teachers. That letter was our last hope,” she said.
Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana women commission, said that they received an email with the complaint and a forwarded letter from the Prime Minister’s Office on September 13. “The next day, we wrote to the police to take action.”
READ | Sexual harassment of minors was not first incident for accused principal in Haryana, say villagers
But for 44 days, between September 13 and October 27 nothing happened. “The police did not register a case, nor was any other investigation carried out,” a senior education officer of the state government said.
Then, on October 25, the principal arranged an unusual three-day excursion for 64 girl students from Classes 9 to 12 to Amritsar and the Attari border. One victim told HT that, at this point, they were unaware any action was on the anvil, and therefore had to acquiesce to the trip, afraid of what might happen. “But this trip was different. The principal and the teachers knew that there was something happening. We were told indirectly several times that if anyone asks us questions about the school or the principal’s conduct, we should give good feedback. Six teachers, five of them women, and the principal went with us. For once, he didn’t misbehave with anyone,” the first girl said.
District authorities refused to comment on the trip and how it was sanctioned, but said that they first started an investigation on October 25. On October 27, when the students returned late at night, Haryana’s additional chief secretary Sudhir Rajpal ordered the principal’s suspension, and Jyoti Sheokand, the district education officer, visited the school for the first time.
What she heard shook her to her core.
“I kept the teachers away, gathered the students in a room, and convinced them to confide in me. There were 200 girls in the room, and they were all scared because there were CCTV cameras. They were afraid that their confessions would be accessed by teachers and their parents. But we kept telling them, we would keep their names secret. Girl by girl, they shared their ordeals. What I heard was horrific,” Sheokand said.
Behind the tinted door
The two-storeyed school building has 935 girl students in classes 1 to 12. It is painted in red, with arches running through its outer periphery. Inside, the cream corridors are hand-painted with motivational quotes... On one such wall is the phrase, “Mehnat, himmat aur lagan se sapne sakaar hote hai (Dreams are achieved through work, courage, and commitment.” Right below those words painted in blue, is an aluminium door, framing an opaque dark-tinted glass: the principal’s room, or in this case, the scene of crime.
“The door was installed soon after the principal joined. Though there are CCTV cameras inside, they were placed so that his chair and those standing near it were not visible in the frame. He would make us stand uncomfortably close to him, would start talking about his sexual desires. He would make us touch him, and as this was going on, the peon did not allow anyone to enter the room without permission,” a third student, 16, said.
A fourth student, who is 15 years old, said that Kartar Singh once called her to his room, and told her that he had seen her watching pornography on a tablet given to students of classes 10 and 12 under the state government’s e-Adhigam scheme. “I remember the peon coming to summon me. I had been reading on my tablet but he said I was watching pornography, and asked me if I was sexually active. He touched me and tried to force himself on me, but a teacher approached the office, and he told me to stand at a distance,” she said.
Kartar Singh, this girl student alleged, asked if she had ever kissed a boy. “When I said no, he told me to come to him, and that he would teach me how to kiss.”
Some residents of Jind said that this wasn’t the first school where Kartar Singh had preyed on children. Rajkumar Singh, the former sarpanch of Makhand village said that the principal was posted in the school in their village in 2008. “He was the headmaster and his behaviour was never right. Many girls would come home complaining about his conduct, and we had even complained to higher authorities. A team from Panchkula came at the time to investigate, but nothing happened. Eventually the girls were reluctant to go ahead with police action, afraid of the repercussions.”
The investigation
The Jind district police registered a case against Kartar Singh on October 30 under Section 8 (sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and Section 354 (molestation) of the Indian Penal Code, after which he was placed under suspension by the state government. But Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the state commission for women, said that even this came after they intervened repeatedly. “I had to give an ultimatum to the police because the suspect was living freely, and the victims were scared for their lives,” she said.
Sumit Kuhar, Jind’s superintendent of police, however, said that there was no delay because they first gathered evidence and checked Kartar Singh’s background before registering a case. “Even family members and schoolteachers were unaware of what had happened with the girls. We did not take much time but because it involved so many students, we handled the case with sensitivity,” Kuhar said.
Police finally arrested Singh on November 4, and he is currently in Jind jail on judicial remand. After questioning, they have since added Sections 341(wrongful restraint), 342 (confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, and Section 10 of the Pocso Act (punishment for aggravated sexual assault) to the FIR.
Kuhar said that, thus far, eight students have recorded their statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and that this is the basis of their evidence in the case. “The suspect has also named a few persons who have supported him in these obscene activities in the school. The role of another teacher and the peon is under the scanner, and we have collected strong evidence that will help our case in the trial.”
The police are also investigating possible allegations that the man used to call children to his home and rape them.
“The suspect rented a two-room house in the village and victims have alleged that he used to call them home and had raped them. Eight victims have recorded their statements under Section 164 of the CrPc,” said Kuhar.
Concurrently, on November 7, the Jind administration formed a committee under district education officer Sheokand to conduct a probe. She got 50 girls to fill out a questionnaire, the answers to which have been submitted to the Haryana Women’s Commission. Bhatia said that they have received 60 written complaints against the principal. “Of these, 50 are complaints from girls who have alleged physical abuse, while 10 others said they were aware of his misbehaviour,” said Bhatia. And by Thursday, that number had climbed to 142, according to district officials.
Mohammad Imran Raza, Jind deputy commissioner, said a team recorded the statements of 390 girl students, of which 142 statements directly or indirectly held the principal guilty. “The students have alleged sexual harassment and assault by the principal. We sent our report to the director of education last week,” he said.
Counselling, and courage
On November 16, under mounting pressure, the additional director general of police constituted a five-member special investigation team headed by Deepti Garg, ASP (Sirsa), to look into the allegations, and asked for the an investigation to be completed in 10 days. The station house officer of the police station concerned was transferred, and instructions were issued to ensure the counselling of the victims.
“The investigating officer has brought three girls to us, and we have met them in school once. The girls are reeling under trauma, and are scared of the suspect’s family. It will take time to fully assuage their concerns,” said Sujata Malhan, district child protection officer.
Family members of Singh that HT reached out to for comment said he was innocent and was being framed by former teachers who had altercations with him on disciplinary issues. “Someone has instigated students to write this letter,” said one family member, who did not want to be identified.
A senior teacher in the school said that they were unaware of such events and did not believe the five-page complaint letter. “This was written by someone else. The girls are unable to write a leave application, let alone a five-page letter. Someone is behind this conspiracy,” the teacher added, asking not to be named.
But Soonia Doohan, a Nationalist Congress Party leader said that serious questions need to be raised about administrative laxity. “For instance, who paid for the principal’s trip to Amritsar with the students without permission from the department? It is clear the suspect made efforts to silence the minor victims and it happened in the knowledge of the education department and other officials,” Doohan said.
Haryana’s deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, who is the legislator from Uchana, said that the government has taken prompt action, and that Kartar Singh was arrested within a “few days”. “There is no place in society for a person who is responsible for guiding students but turned into a predator. The police has collected enough evidence to ensure he remain behind bars and find it difficult to get bail,” Chautala said.
In her dark room, the 15-year-old’s eyes have still not left the floor. She deals with trauma in school, despite the changes over the past three weeks — there is now a new woman principal, the black tinted door has been replaced, his chair is gone. She deals with trauma at home — her parents are unhappy; they want her married off.
But even in the darkness and the whispers, there is now courage. “I want to study and join the police,” she says. “So I can help other girls like me.”
