Sunday, April 20, 2008

TEENAGERS ASSAULT MCD SCHOOL CLASS V STUDENTS

On April 02, 2008, two boy students, namely, Madan and Mohan (names changed) aged 11 years, of class V of MCD Primary School, Burari, Delhi (India) were assaulted by four teenagers aged 13 to 16 years out side the school when these students were going back to their homes around noon after attending the school. Two of the culprits stopped these students and asked them to give them money. The moment, the students told them that they do not have any money; one of the culprits took out a knife from his pocket and assaulted Madan whereas another culprit caught hold of Mohan and hit him at his mouth. The clothes of Madan were torn and the blood started coming from the mouth of Mohan. Both the students were terrified and somehow, they pushed the culprits and run away to their homes. On reaching home, Madan narrated the incident to his old grandmother as his mother had died long away and his father left the house about 10 years ago. The grandmother is living in abject poverty and somehow, looking after three children including Madan of her son. Mohan also narrated the incident to his parents.

The aforesaid incident came to the notice of Advocate Ashok Agarwal when he visited the school on 04.04.2008. On entering the class V, he saw an old lady sitting on a chair in the classroom. On enquiry from the class teacher, he came to know that the old lady is the grandmother of the student Madan and she had came to school in connection with the incident of 2nd April. The old lady and the students narrated the incident to him. He was shocked to hear about the incident. He immediately took both the students and the old lady to the nearby police post of Burari and requested the police post in-charge to lodge the report. One Head Constable recorded the statements of both the students on a piece of paper and assured that necessary action would be taken. Thereafter, the students and the old lady were dropped back at the school. The Head Constable informed Mr. Agarwal in the evening that the FIR could not be registered without the permission of the Juvenile Justice Board as all the four assailants were minor.

The aforesaid incident gives rise to several serious issues like, safety of school students, increasing teenagers’ delinquency, relevance of existing laws and functioning of the juvenile justice system etc. It may not be out of the context to mention that the Sunday Times of India, New Delhi, April 20, 2008 reported that an eight-year-old girl was crushed to death by a school bus in Hastsal area near Uttam Nagar early on Saturday. Kajal, a student of class II of a government school, was walking down to her school around 7.30 am when a minibus carrying students of a private school in Vikaspuri reportedly hit her killing her on the spot. The Times of India, April 17, 2008 reported that in one of the worst road disasters in Gujrat, 41 children and three adults drowned in the Narmada main canal when a state transport bus crashed and plunged the railings of a bridge and plunged 60 feet, or about five storeys, into the canal at 6.15 am on Wednesday. The young victims were headed for school for the penultimate paper in the annual exams when the driver lost control of the rickety government-owned bus after its axle broke.

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