Shimla: Hostel warden held for molesting girls

In a shocking incident, minor inmates of a tribal girls' hostel at Solan in Himachal Pradesh have been allegedly molested and harassed for more than a year by its in-charge, who has now been arrested.

Acting on a complaint of a 14 year-old tribal girl from Kalpa in Kinnaur district, a police team led by Superintendent of Police of Solan Prem Kumar Thakur raided the hostel at Salogra on Tuesday night and arrested hostel in-charge Pawan Goel.

Goel, 48, has been booked under Section 354 of IPC (molestation) and Section 3 of SC/ST Act, Additional Superintendent of Police Basher Singh Chauhan, who was part of the raid team said today. Salogra is five km from Solan district headquarters and about 40 km south-west of Shimla.

It has been alleged that several girl inmates of the hostel have been repeatedly sexually harassed by the warden for more than a year. The complainant girl is at present undergoing treatment at Indira Gandhi Medical College here for "depression" caused by the incident.

The matter came to light when the petition of the girl was taken to Additional Director General of Police (CID) I D Bhandari by a social activist Ajai Srivastava. Bhandari ordered the Solan police to take necessary action.

The hostel, 'Adivasi Balika Education Complex', having a capacity to house 30 girls, is being run in a rented building by the 'Bharatiya Adim Jaati Sewak Sangh', a voluntary organisation for tribal welfare founded by late Thakar Bappa, an associate of Mahatama Gandhi. It is funded by the Central government.

Srivastava said 21 poor tribal girls aged between 13 and 17 from Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand are presently living in the hostel.

The girls are studying at Salogra government secondary school. Goel and his wife Kiran were running the hostel, the chairman of public welfare trust Umang foundation said.

In her petition to Srivastava, the complainant said the in-charge used to sexually harass the girls for over a year.

Even a complaint to the local head of the society by parents of one of the girls did not improve the situation.

She said Goel used to ask the girls to message his body and also used to send obscene SMS to some of them.

Surprisingly, Kiran did not stop Goel from indulging in illegal activities with the girls, the girl said in her petition.

A similar incident took place on March last year in the state. Three teachers, including a school principal, were arrested in Shimla on charges of sexual exploitation of six mentally challenged girls at a hostel run by NGO Prerna.

Demanding a commission for protection of child rights in Himachal Pradesh, Srivastava said if the state government did not initiate immediate corrective steps, the foundation would file a PIL in the High Court on the matter.

Cool Hostel Life

Any guy or girl who has spent a few years in a hostel will tell you that it is a mixed bag. Neither is it all fun, games and drinking, nor is it all studies, ragging and tension. It is an ideal preparatory ground for all ’kids’ to grow up and face life.

Here I will list down 3 good and bad sides of Hostel life (as I see it).

WHAT I ENJOYED:

1. Movies: While I was in hostel, I watched most of the movies FDFS (First Day First Show). It did not really matter if the movie was good, bad or ugly. It did not matter if the movie was a comedy, romance or a tragedy. It did not matter if it came from a Yash Raj banner or was a C Grade South Indian adult fare. WE HAD FUN.

2. Dhaba Food: We had lots of Dhaba food. Being a non veg eater, I ate numerous plates of juicy Tandoori Chicken, Butter Chicken and Rotis at various dhabas. We had food in dhabas mainly becos we enjoyed the food there and could not afford food in big restaurants anyway.

3. Drinking and Dirty Mags: As any guy staying in hostels will tell you, guys drink a LOT! In our hostel, Daaru was plentiful. It did not matter if you had money or not - no body refused you a drink! So we drank like there was no tomorrow............and ofcourse every guys hostel has lots of dirty mags. The number of Dirty Mags i have been through in those 3 years - I can not match up in all my years ahead. And everybody used to bring their own collection and share with all. So I read English, Tamil, Telegu, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi and even some French dirty mags. (Fortunately you read less and look more - as I cant read all those languages).

WHAT I HATED:

1. Ragging: No body enjoys running around in the college campus without clothes on (at night)! Neither did I! But ragging was accepted as a necessary evil and we had to tolerate it as well. But to our credit WE NEVER RAGGED anyone. No exceptions.....no clarifications. No one was even told to sing a song, dance - nothing at all. Unfortunately we were not so lucky and had to do several ragging acts like:
- Proposing to senior’s girlfriends
- Dancing Mujra in our undies (or nothing) for our seniors / ’pleasuring’ ourselves openly
- Wearing flimsy girl’s undergarments in our ragging period (1.5 months)
But thanks to this - I could after that bath, change clothes in front of others - no issues. I was very shy before i went to the hostel.

2. Hostel Food: I will let you judge our hostel food by describing a typical canteen meal.
Rice with stones (90% and 10%)
Dal in water (90% and 10%)
Sabzi (A mix of vegetables no one can understand)
Chaas (Dahi and Water)
:) To say the least - we hated it from the bottom of our heart and ate out when the pocket permitted. But thanks to this - I can today eat anything, anywhere - no problem sir!

3. Exams: It’s not really anything to do with Hostels, but we did have to study a lot in the hostel. Atleast 3 months a year we used to study day and night. And by day and night - I mean upto 15 hours a day! And the hostel dudes were very supportive. No one EVER disturbed you if you were studying. But those 3 months were really tough. The only pleasure was the day results came out and we could see the Distinction" stamp on the result card!

At the end of it all, I feel when i have kids, i will definitely keep them a few years in hostel. This will help them ’GROW UP’.

Please add your experiences in the comments!