Menstruation check: College principal, rector among 4 arrested

Police on Monday arrested four persons, including the principal of the Gujarat college where authorities allegedly forced over 60 girls to remove their undergarments to check if they were menstruating a week ago, an official said.

The arrests were made after the police filed an FIR against them for the February 11 incident at Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute (SSGI) which caused public outrage.

SSGI, a self-financed college having its own girls' hostel, is located in Bhuj town of Kutch district. The college is run by a trust of the Swaminarayan Temple and is affiliated to the Krantiguru Shyamji Krishna Verma Kutch University.

Principal Rita Raninga, girls' hostel rector Ramilaben Hirani, college peon Naina Gorasiya and one Anita Chauhan were arrested by the police. Taking serious view of the incident, linked to a hostel rule, on Saturday, the college suspended Raninga, Hirani and Gorasiya, said SSGI trustee Pravin Pindoria on Monday.

We today arrested all the four accused named in the FIR, police inspector P H Langdhirka said. They were produced before a local court which remanded them in police custody for two days, police said. The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 384 (extortion), 355 (assault with intent to dishonour a person) and 506 (criminal intimidation), they said.

After the incident came to light, a seven-member team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Sunday met the girl inmates of the hostel. A student earlier told mediapersons that the incidenttook place on February 11 in the hostel, located on the campus of SSGI, which offers graduate and under-graduate courses.

She alleged that over 60 students were taken to the washroom by a woman staffer and made to remove their undergarments to check if they were menstruating. Darshana Dholakia, in-charge vice-chancellor of the university to which the college is affiliated, had earlier said the girls were checked because the hostel has a rule that girls having periods are not supposed to take meals with other inmates.

The hostel authorities decided to check them after they came to know that some menstruating girls had broken the rule and taken the meal. The police earlier said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed, with woman police officials as its members, to probe the incident.