Rape suspects have confessed to crime, police say

Dubai: The bus driver accused of raping a four-year-old girl on a school bus was employed with the school and its transportation service provider for 14 years, Gulf News has learnt.

The conductor of the bus, among the three suspects arrested by the police, was with the school for seven years. The third suspect is a conductor of another bus going on a different route.

According to the Dubai Police, the Indian child, a pupil of Modern High School, Nad Al Sheba, was allegedly raped by the three suspects on November 11, and later dropped off at her home in Karama. Although the parents were aware of the incident right away, they hesitated in reporting and only notified the matter to police on January 9, officials said.

The suspects, all Indians aged 26, 37 and 44, have confessed to the crime, according to police, and are now in custody pending investigation.

The alleged incident took place when the child was taking the school bus home. Transportation has been outsourced by GEMS to School Transport Service (STS), a company partly owned by GEMS management. Both the conductors were school employees while the driver worked with the transport provider.

Responding to the claims of the parents that their child was raped by three people, one after the other, GEMS said: "The safety of all children at GEMS is our highest priority and any allegation of this nature is greatly disturbing." The bus company involved transports 44,000 students every day and this is the first allegation of the kind, GEMS said.

The school was approached by the parents on January 5. The school then advised the parents to report the matter immediately. They suspended the suspects pending investigation and handed over two of the suspects to the police.

According to STS, the transportation provider, they are already taking more safety measures than what is mandated by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). An STS spokesman told Gulf News that last year they installed Global Positioning Systems (GPS) in all buses and also introduced electronic student attendance systems to track student's entry and exit from buses.

Employee screening

"The GPS on the particular bus showed no anomaly on the day of the alleged incident," the spokesman for STS said. "As per school records, the second conductor was not on the bus used by the victim." He added that they employ people after screening them for criminal record with Indian police.

Modern High School charges Dh2,600 as school fees every month for kindergarten students. The bus fees range between Dh400 to Dh500 per month, which is comparatively higher than what many schools charge.