Archive: Bangalore Police Booked 180+ Schools Over Safety Failures

From the TI archives — originally published September 2014. This story concerns sexual assault of a child; read with care.

In September 2014, Bangalore police booked more than 180 schools for failing to implement child-safety guidelines — the fallout from the July rape of a 6-year-old girl at Vibgyor High by two of the school's gym instructors, a case that enraged the city and mobilized parents.

The police had issued a set of safety directives: CCTV cameras in classrooms, common areas, and school buses; background verification of staff; visitor ID checks; and rules ensuring a child was never left alone with a single adult. Simple measures — cameras, ID cards for visitors — were still missing in many schools, most of them private. School managements cited lack of funds.

"Some measures suggested hardly involved financial expenditure, so that's our prime focus now," said M.N. Reddi, then Bangalore's police commissioner. "The schools, especially those which have not implemented the cost-effective measures, would be considered erring."

Protesting parents submitted their own set of guidelines to the authorities: background verification and psychometric testing of staff, no child left alone at any point, and CCTV coverage of classrooms, common areas, and buses. The state later formalized the norms, and by November 2014 the home minister reported 180 schools had been booked citywide since the rules took force.

A note on this 2014 headline: it claimed "80% of schools fail" — the original piece itself only established that roughly 80% of the booked schools were private. The accurate headline is the one above.