Sexual assault: Classes resume at GD Birla Centre for Education

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Kolkata: Classes at the GD Birla Centre for Education here resumed on Thursday after nearly a week following a settlement reached by the school management and guardians over the demand for removal of the principal in the wake of the alleged sexual assault of a four-year-old girl.

A school managing committee spokesman told PTI that classes of the senior section began this morning.

"The classes of the junior section will resume from tomorrow," he said.

The stalemate ended last night after the management decided to "relieve" principal Sharmila Nath from her present responsibilities, following a three-hour meeting with the Guardians Forum.

"The principal has been relieved of her present responsibilities with immediate effect, and the vice-principal and a coordinator will be officiating," the spokesman said.

A guardian of a senior-section student said, "We are very happy that classes resumed today. The stalemate would have affected studies of children had it continued."

Before the classes resumed, guardians removed all posters they had pasted on the gates and boundary wall of the school.

They pasted the posters denouncing the alleged sexual assault on the girl and raising their demands during the past several days.

Meanwhile, Sharmila Nath said today that she could not be held responsible for somebody else's act or words and that she was being judged unfairly.

"How can I be held responsible for the alleged act of someone else? Can I be held responsible for someone else's words or act?" she told a Bengali news channel.

Nath has been named in an FIR registered based on a complaint by the parents of the girl for allegedly suppressing the incident and shielding the two accused who were arrested on December 1.

"People are making all sorts of comments against me without knowing how much I have been involved with the students in all these years," Nath said.

On November 30, a four-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted in the school, which led to the arrest of two physical training instructors amid a massive agitation by guardians.

After an FIR was registered against Nath on December 2, she was summoned to the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar on December 5 and questioned for several hours.

West Bengal Commission for the Protection of Child Rights chairperson Ananya Chakraborti, who was also present at yesterday's meeting, said, "The principal has been relieved of her responsibilities. We are happy over the outcome."

The meeting was attended by the school management, representatives of the Guardians Forum and senior police officers.

A spokesperson of the forum said the school management promised to look into their other demands -- having no male teacher in both junior and senior sections and installation of CCTV in school buses.

The police have also formed a special committee to look into the allegations of negligence and false representation on part of the school principal.