Blind side

Education dept must review how it conducts probes into sex crimes

| SEPTEMBER 28, 2016, 05:30 AM IST
The recent judgement of the Children’s Court convicting a teacher of a government school in Bicholim has raised serious doubts about the manner in which the education department conducts inquiries into cases as serious as sexual abuse of minor students. The teacher in question was accused of sexually abusing minor girl students aged between seven and nine years. Though the victims are over 15 years old now, they still have a vivid memory of what happened in the school and how the teacher threatened them into silence. The matter came to light only after the teacher proceeded on leave and the abused students assumed that he had left for good. That is when they narrated their tales of abuse to their parents.   
Sadly, the inquiry officer of the department of education preferred to see the story from the viewpoint of the teacher rather than the victims. The officer went out of his way to discredit the narrative of the students. The report submitted to the department in 2011, stated that the students were all from the same vaddo and were related and hence their testimony could not be relied on, which is quite silly.  
However, when the same testimonies were given in the Children’s court, they were accepted by the judge who stated, that the version of the girl victims cannot be discounted because they were too young at the point of time of the offence to make it up. The inquiry officer stated that the complaint had been instigated by a parent who nursed a grudge against the teacher as he had refused to sign a subsidy form. If this were the case, then the defence would have been able to discredit the girls before the court. The positive inquiry report resulted in reinstatement of the teacher and it was used by him in his defence in court.   
It is quite possible that two people might arrive at different conclusions after weighing the evidence, but in the case of the inquiry officer of the department undermined the process by rejecting the testimonies of the victims. It is quite clear that the officer was influenced by a single incident, which is, the so called grudge between a parent and the teacher and preferred to view everything from that vantage point. This resulted in injustice to the girls.   
This case alone must prompt a review of how inquiries into criminal acts and especially abuse of minors are conducted by the department. Although it would be unfair to paint every official of the department with the same brush, it appears that very few officials are trained to hold inquiries of this nature. Hence, the department must raise a special cadre of officers who can be trained to undertake inquiries in a judicious and fair manner so that biases are eliminated. Secondly, it must be made mandatory that inquiries into cases of sexual abuse are conducted by a bench of at least three persons which must include at least one woman member.  
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