Dubai: A nation in shock, a family in trauma, a child in distress, a school under spotlight. And now a chilling revelation: the four-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted on a school bus has identified the perpetrators of the crime. Mercifully, an HIV test conducted on her has proved negative.
"My daughter identified the three men … as per protocol. She categorically told my wife and the police what happened on the bus," her father told XPRESS.
"We got the HIV test done and it was negative," he said.
The identification gains significance as the girl, a student of Modern High School, was the last to be dropped off at her house in Karama on the morning of November 11, 2010 when the bus driver and two conductors allegedly assaulted her.
Sources said Gems has hired a lawyer to provide legal assistance to the three suspects who are in police custody.
In an attempt to retrace the movements of the bus, XPRESS gained exclusive access to the control room of the transport provider - School Transport Services (STS) - from where the vehicle with 20 children on board was being monitored through the Global Positioning System (GPS).
A look at the electronic student attendance log shows that 15 children were dropped off between 10.42am and 10.54am in the area around where the girl lives. They included four class four students, the last of whom got off at 10.50am.
Last scanned report
The e-logs of five children, including the four-year-old victim, were not available. "Some cards get damaged and as and when reported are replaced. In this case, we had not yet received a request for the replacement … Unfortunately, the last available scanned report of this child is of November 2, 2010," said STS Managing Director Col M.L. Augustine.
"I cannot say what happened inside the bus but going purely by the information I have from the GPS report, the bus did not stop anywhere except to drop off children from the time it left the school at 10.15am and the time it dropped the girl (the victim) at 11am," he said.
Augustine said the bus, which usually takes kindergarten children at 11.45am, left early that morning with children up to class IV as the school was marking Children's Day and there were no regular classes. It was also the last day before the school closed for Eid holidays.
Augustine said since September last year, the school had introduced an electronic attendance log whereby bar-coded ID cards are scanned when children enter and exit the buses. "Unfortunately, this child did not have the bar-coded ID and the last scanned report we have of her is of November 2, 2010," he said.
The girl's father, who said his daughter was carrying the normal ID card, told XPRESS: "The bar-coded card remains in the bus. Scanning or not scanning it is the responsibility of the bus driver." Asked to comment on the GPS logs, he said, "I have not seen the report, so I cannot comment on it."
GPS not foolproof?
"But technically, GPS can be tampered with," he said, adding that "anything can happen on a moving bus, especially when a child is young and is alone."
Such GPS reports should be sent to RTA on a daily basis, he said. The father of two - he has a son aged two besides the girl - said he was thankful to Dubai Police, CID and the school management for their support but was still looking for answers to some key questions: "Why was the bus late? Why was my daughter dropped last? Why did the driver tell my wife not to come to the stop until he gave her a missed call?"
He said his wife was at the stop before she received the call. "School buses should do away with tinted glasses and curtains. They should rotate bus drivers and conductors, appoint women conductors on board and install CCTV cameras in the vehicles."
Augustine agrees. "The incident has shaken me. I would like to do whatever best I can for the safety of the 40,000-plus children I commute every day," he said, adding that all data with him had been provided to the police.
He said he now plans to get CCTV cameras for the 1,000 buses he operates for 32 schools in the UAE. At around Dh3,000 apiece, it is expensive but well worth the expense, he added.
"I also request parents and children to immediately report any suspicious activities," he said, noting that the Indian driver, who worked with STS for 14 years, was suspended almost immediately.
The victim's father said he had not sent her to school since the incident and was downloading lessons from the school website to teach her at home. Asked if she would return to the same school, he said, "We haven't thought about it yet."
A statement from the GEMS management 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 this type," it said.
"The court will decide whether the men are guilty or innocent. No judgement has been handed down at this point," it said.
Keeping track
STS introduced the GPS system in its buses in January 2010 and the electronic scanner IDs in September 2010. The GPS system, connected to the etisalat server, provides information about the vehicle's whereabouts every three minutes. At any given point, the following information can also be accessed by the STS control room: vehicle number, identity of driver and conductor, their mobile numbers, the business unit they come under, the speed of the vehicle and the unit ID of the GPS.
With inputs from Lubna Bagsair, Staff Reporter
