A single skip and a heavy toll.

Last week, the country was left flabbergasted when another rape of a young girl came into limelight. A little student, 6 year old, who barely knew the meaning of rape, was subjected to the crime. Even more shocking is the involvement of a school instructor and another person in it. The instructor, reports claim, used to teach skating in the esteemed school that girl studies in. And this person, along with another man, subjugated the little girl to cruelty. 

As I logged into my email account, a day after this incident, there was a request to sign a petition, asking the Karnataka Education Minister to send a strict directive to all schools. The same day, as I switched onto television news there were reports of massive protests in the city. Enraged parents, students and citizens had taken it to the streets of Bangalore. 

• Protests in Bangalore over the rape of a six year old girl.

The protest in Bangalore reminds me of the protest in New Delhi in the aftermath of the 16^th December Delhi Gang Rape. At that time, I used to edit Ground Zero and I remember doing a sequence of stories on this issue. Somewhat similar were those visuals - people thronging the streets, breaking the barricades in anger, demanding answers and tight security for females. 

If I am not wrong then two months ago we were debating on the same incident happened in Badaun, U.P. Two girls were first found hanged to a tree and later it was told that they were raped. Followed were a couple more similar incidents in Uttar Pradesh. Two years ago, a three year old girl was sexually victimized by the school principal’s husband. In repercussion, we debated, protested a lot, blamed the local administration and raised voice for early actions. What happened next? Did the incidents stop? No. It didn’t. Yes, it didn’t, as we have history repeating yet again though in another city and place.   

The skating instructor, accused in this has a similar case against him. According to reports, he did this in the institution where he taught previously for which he was fired from his job. Police, currently has also found videos of child pornography from his laptop. Surprising it is that a person as risky as him was allotted a job in a reputed school. 

Often institutions do not verify the background details of employees before hiring them. Often we people too, don’t verify details about our servants and maids before allotting them work at our places. Police, right from the beginning are telling people to verify details of employees but people tend to skip this process. Verification is necessary as we never know a person with a previous record might come up with fresh details and put mud into our eyes. The skipping of this necessary background verification step has proven to be heavy on Vibgyor International High School, Bangalore, where this incident has happened. 

A little girl had to go through trauma because of a single mistake of the school. Had the school checked the verification details of the instructor before hiring him, this incident would have never happened. We can never imagine what a victim goes through.  For us it is very easy to discuss the issue and press in for action. But the trauma that a victim goes through is unimaginable. And in this case the victim is a little child. 

This incident is a lesson, a lesson for not just the education institutions but for all of us. We need to strictly abide by the police verification step and should never hire any employee without going through this step. The process may take time but life is precious and in order to ensure safety and security, going through processes is necessary. After all we never know in whose disguise a predator is waiting to grab his prey.