A school is supposed to be the safest place outside a child’s home. For parents, handing over a daughter to a teacher is an act of trust. That trust carries a simple expectation: that the person entrusted with educating a child will protect her dignity, safety and innocence.
Today, that trust has been brutally shaken in Kishtwar.
A 14-year-old school-going girl from Chatroo died while being shifted to Doda for medical treatment in connection with a pregnancy termination. Police have registered a case and a teacher has been taken into custody as the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy and the girl’s death are investigated.
The facts of the case must be established through a fair and thorough investigation, and guilt must ultimately be determined by the competent court. But one fact cannot be ignored: a child has died, and the circumstances have raised deeply disturbing questions about the safety of girls in educational institutions.
And this cannot simply be dismissed as an isolated incident.
There have also been recent allegations from a Srinagar-based school involving the harassment of a girl by members of the school staff. What is particularly disturbing in such cases is not merely the allegation itself, but the institutional response when a child or family raises a complaint. When an institution attempts to minimise, suppress or brush aside an allegation instead of immediately treating it as a child-safety issue, the damage goes far beyond the individual complaint.
A school cannot become defensive when a child speaks.
It must become more vigilant.
The fundamental question, therefore, is not simply whether our schools have classrooms, laboratories, smart boards, transport facilities and examination results. The more important question is: are our daughters safe when they walk through the school gates?
Jammu and Kashmir has laws and institutions intended to protect children. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act places a legal obligation to report offences against children, and even provides punishment for failure to report. It specifically provides for institutional accountability when the person in charge of an institution fails to report an offence committed by a subordinate.
So the problem is not necessarily an absence of law.
The problem can be the gap between law and implementation.
A child may be frightened to speak. She may fear being blamed, shamed or disbelieved. She may worry about her parents, her classmates or her future. A teacher or staff member may be an authority figure whom she believes she cannot challenge. In smaller communities, the fear of social stigma can become an additional barrier.
That is precisely why the responsibility of the institution is greater.
Schools cannot tell children to “speak up” and then make them regret speaking.
Every school, whether government or private, must have a functioning child-protection mechanism that children actually know about. There must be clearly identified persons to whom a student can report harassment or inappropriate behaviour without fear. Complaints must be recorded, escalated and investigated through the legally prescribed process. Parents should not have to fight an institution merely to get a complaint taken seriously.
The first response to an allegation involving a child should never be reputation management.
It should be child protection.
There is another uncomfortable question that society must ask: how well are teachers and other school employees being screened, trained and supervised?
Being a teacher is not merely an employment designation. Teachers occupy a position of authority and influence over children. A child can spend several hours a day with a teacher and may develop a level of trust that can be exploited by an individual who abuses that position.
That is why recruitment checks, background verification, professional conduct standards, regular sensitisation, supervision and effective complaint mechanisms cannot be treated as paperwork.
They are safeguards.
The Kishtwar tragedy should therefore not end with an arrest, a police investigation and a few days of public outrage. If the allegations are established, the guilty must face the full force of law. But the larger institutional questions must also be answered.
When did people around the child first notice that something was wrong?
Did she try to communicate her distress?
Was there anyone in the school she could safely approach?
Were warning signs missed?
Did anyone know and remain silent?
And if an allegation had previously been made against a staff member, what action was taken?
These are not questions intended to conduct a parallel investigation through the media. They are questions about whether the system has adequate safeguards to prevent another child from reaching a point from which there is no return.
The government and education authorities should use this moment to undertake a serious, independent review of child-safety mechanisms across schools in Jammu and Kashmir. Private schools should not be treated differently from government schools when it comes to the safety of children. Compliance should not exist only on paper.
There should be periodic verification of child-protection mechanisms, confidential avenues for students to report misconduct, proper training for teachers and non-teaching staff, and strict accountability for institutions that suppress or fail to report serious allegations.
The newly notified J&K Regulation and Registration of Educational Institutions/Coaching Centres Rules, 2026 also underline that regulation of educational institutions is an established governmental responsibility.
But regulation is meaningful only when it is enforced.
Parents, too, need to be encouraged to listen differently. A sudden change in behaviour, unexplained fear of a particular person, reluctance to attend school, withdrawal, anxiety or an unusual silence may sometimes be a child’s way of communicating that something is wrong. Children do not always have the vocabulary or confidence to describe abuse.
Most importantly, society must stop placing the burden of shame on the child.
A girl who reports harassment is not damaging the reputation of her school.
The person who allegedly harassed her is.
A parent who demands an investigation is not bringing disrepute to an institution.
The failure to protect a child does.
And a school that takes a complaint seriously is not admitting guilt. It is demonstrating responsibility.
There is a temptation, whenever a shocking case emerges, to demand the harshest punishment and then move on. Justice certainly matters. Accountability matters. But prevention matters just as much.
The real measure of a school is not what happens after a child is harmed. It is what the institution does to ensure that harm does not happen in the first place.
The 14-year-old girl from Chatroo will never return to her classroom. Her death should not become another headline that disappears after a few days.
It should force Jammu and Kashmir to ask a question that can no longer be postponed:
When parents send their daughters to school, are they sending them into an environment that is genuinely safe—or merely assuming that it is?
The answer cannot be based on assurances.
It must be demonstrated through systems, accountability and action.
