School didn’t check suspect’s background
ACCORDING TO THE RULES, IF THE SCHOOL WOULD HAVE DONE A BACKGROUND CHECK OF THE CONDUCTOR, HE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED THERE
Compliance of School Security Guidelines issued by the police in September 2014 could have averted the tragic murder of an eight-year-old class 2 student at Ryan International School, Bhondsi, Gurgaon.
The guidelines make it mandatory for a school to check the background of its employees before hiring them for part-time or full-time job. Police sources said the school did not carry out verification of bus conductor Ashok Kumar, 42, who has been accused of killing the boy in the school toilet after a failed sexual assault attempt.
Police investigation revealed that Kumar was fired from his job at a private school in his village Ghamroj because of his suspicious behaviour.
Agitated parents said the police has also failed to take action against schools violating school safety guidelines. They still haven’t invoked any section of negligence against the school even though no attendant was deployed outside the toilet. Parents alleged that in violation of Section 2.2.5 of school security guidelines, the school toilet in which the murder took place was shared by students, bus drivers, conductors and class 4 staff. They said that only after some incident takes place, the police conduct an audit, but later there are no regular checks.
On May 9, 2016, Jiya Juneja, a seven-year-old class 3 student of Ryan International School, Sector 40, was hit by a car after her school bus dropped her on the wrong side of the road. There was no conductor or attendant in the bus and no action was taken against the school. “After the incident, transport safety audits were revisited and then finally in July this year, we saw many schools getting the yellow buses with some checks. But again everything is back to square one and now many school buses don’t even have names or contacts details for emergency printed on them,” said Ruchika Sethi Takkar, a volunteer for formulating the school safety guidelines.
Some parents said there should be zero tolerance for noncompliance with child safety guidelines. They said there are still many gaps in the process and police need to take strict action against the school.
Meanwhile, Gurgaon police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said, “We are examining all the angles of the case and will surely take action against the school once we are done with the investigations. Those who will be found guilty will be booked.”