Gangrape victim son denied admission

A boy born out of gangrape of a woman in a Madhya Pradesh village has been denied admission in a school on the ground that there was no clarity on his father in his birth certificate. The “unwed” mother and his son have been knocking the doors of the local administration in east Madhya Pradesh district of Dindori for the past two years seeking justice to them, official reports reaching here on Sunday said. The incident has been reported in a fringe village of the district headquarters town of Dindori.

Three local youth — Malle Singh, Om Prakash and Basant Das — accused of raping the woman in 2003, walked free after spending three years in jail after being acquitted of the charges due to lack of witnesses. The woman gave birth to her son on March 15, 2004.

According to official reports, local panchayat secretary P.H. Paraste had mentioned names of three rape accused in the column left for providing father’s name, in the boy’s birth certificate, causing problems for him.

“The boy had faced no problem in admission to Class 1. He was not allowed to enrol in Class 6 after he passed Class 5 when the headmaster of the middleschool noticed the ‘discrepancy’ in his birth certificate. His application for admission in the middleschool was rejected on the ground that there was no clarity on his father’s name in the birth certificate,” a complaint lodged by the woman with the local administration said. “It is a serious lapse on the part of the panchayat secretary. He should have left the column where father’s is to be mentioned, blank in this case. The mistake will be corrected by the first-class magistrate and the boy will be admitted in the coming academic session,” sub-divisional magistrate, Dindori, P.K.Sengupta told the media.