Preyed on by school principal, minor girls fight back

The modest two-room home is old, weathered, and eerily quiet. The only background sound is from a persistently creaking fan. She sits on a chair, thin and frail, her eyes barely leaving the floor, her voice struggling to escape her tears.

- Leena Dhankhar

COURAGE UNDER DURESS - A SORDID SAGA

The walls are plagued by seepage, the small bed is unkempt, the musty sheets are crumpled. The lone window, obscured by a layer of dust, struggles to invite sunlight. It’s a dark room where the silence echoes the whispers of her silent struggle.

But, one day, she decided she would be silent no more.

She is 15 years old, a Class 11 student at a government girls’ school in a village in Jind, in the heart of rural Haryana. Her school was meant to give her the path to an education, and a better life. Instead, for four years, the man who led that school — a serial sexual offender — preyed on her. The principal was powerful, and she was afraid of social stigma. When she confided in her parents, they told her they’d stop her education if she revealed the truth.

She was not the only one.

In the seven years that 56-year-old Kartar Singh was principal of the school, there were several other victims. And on August 31, 15 targets of his predatory behaviour banded together to write a five-page letter addressed to the most powerful offices in the country -- the President of India, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India, the Haryana governor, and the state education minister.

“We were chosen through the CCTV’s installed in our classes. The most beautiful, or the most vulnerable, were picked by him and summoned to his room. Some were molested, others blackmailed. Some were sexually harassed. The threat of being expelled or shamed was used to keep us quiet,” said the letter, scrawled in Hindi, in black ink, across five white sheets. A desperate cry for help.