Only women to teach in girls' schools

New Delhi: The Haryana Government as a policy will now employ only women teachers in all government girls’ schools from the primary level to the senior secondary level.

The authorities have also added that if women teachers are not available then male teachers over the age of 50 years will be appointed.

Meanwhile, Director General of School Education, Haryana, K K Khandelwal said, "There are no problems as far as implementation of this order is concerned. After the rapes the government has taken this issue very seriously."

"Now we are meeting not only with people concerned with education management and planning but also discussing with private school managements so that such incidents do not occur again," Khandelwal added.

This decision comes after CNN-IBN uncovered a sordid tale of girls allegedly being raped by their teachers in Durjanapur, a village in the Jind district of Haryana.

Two teachers in the village school had allegedly been raping seven of their students of classes eight and nine.

The students were initially hesitant to narrate their plight, which continued for many months unnoticed.

Both the accused, Ram Kumar and Rameshwar, were arrested on charges of raping seven students at Durjanpur's only school.

While they had vehemently denied the charges, Deputy Superintendent of Police of Narwana district, Surender Singh, had said, "They have committed the crime. They sexually abused the girls and have confessed to the crime."

However, it was not an easy arrest as the villagers were not willing to lodge FIRs, fearing ostracism within the community.

The report was finally lodged after the authorities forced the parents to come out with their cases. Even then, just one parent had filed an FIR.

"Initially no one came forward. Now just one parent has come forward and has named his daughter," Narwana SDM Mohommad Shaheen said.

It was only when a ninth-standard girl became pregnant and told her family that the incident came to light.

The extremely conservative Jat community had been outraged and had threatened to go on a hunger strike till the accused were caught and punished.

Angry villagers had said that they would kill the two teachers, who taught Mathematics and Physical Education at the school, if they could get hold of them.

Two other girls had also got pregnant, but the teachers had forcibly got abortions done.