Police Clash with Protesters Over School Abuse Case in India

Police in the western state of Maharashtra, India, charged at protesters with batons after thousands blocked railway tracks for hours. Demonstrators disrupted train services as they protested against the alleged sexual abuse of two four-year-old girls by a cleaner at a school outside the financial capital of Mumbai.

The protest turned violent as security forces used batons to disperse the crowds, who retaliated by pelting stones and resuming their demonstrations.

A central railways official urged protesters to clear the tracks and let the trains run normally.

Police said the suspect has been arrested and authorities said the case would be tried in a fast-track court.

This case and the unrest comes just days after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata on Aug. 9, which sparked national outrage and protests by junior doctors demanding justice and greater safety for women in hospitals.

Protests against the the alleged sexual assault of two minors in a school at Thane’s Badlapur continued in Mumbai and Pune today.

Reacting to outrage, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde called the demonstrations ‘politically motivated’.

Police were deployed at Badlapur Railway Station after protesters staged a 10-hour ‘rail roko’ to protest the assault.

The protests had turned violent as agitators vandalized the school, where the alleged incident occurred last week, and also pelted stones at the railway station. In light of the unrest, the internet in the area has been suspended to curb the “spread of rumors”.

Meanwhile, the private school in Thane’s Badlapur where two minors were allegedly sexually assaulted did not have CCTV cameras installs, failed to conduct background checks of the accused employee, and did not have Sakhi Savitri Committee, said chairperson of the Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights Susieben Shah.