Peerzada Masarat Shah
There are obligations a society performs, and there are obligations that define what a society is. Paying taxes is a duty. Obeying traffic signals is a duty. But protecting a girl child is something older and deeper than duty — it is a covenant, a trust placed in our hands by every daughter who steps out of her home believing the world will not betray her. When that trust is broken, it is not merely a law that has been violated. It is the moral foundation of the community itself.
Kashmir has been forced to confront this truth twice in recent weeks, and both times the questions raised go far beyond the individual cases.
In Baramulla, police say a young woman was gang-raped by two men at Jalsheeri Drangbal on July 3. According to the police account presented by the Senior Superintendent of Police, the survivor had gone on an outing with a male friend when two men accosted them, assaulted the friend, and sexually assaulted her. What makes the case even more chilling is the allegation that the accused recorded the assault on a mobile phone and later showed the footage to others. The survivor approached the police on July 25, an FIR was registered under the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and after an investigation relying on technical evidence and human intelligence, two men were arrested. The phone allegedly used to record the assault has been recovered, and the investigation continues.
The arrests deserve acknowledgement. But let us be honest about what this case reveals. The survivor waited three weeks before approaching the police. Why? Because in our society, a woman who reports sexual violence risks being tried twice — once by the justice system and once by her neighbours. The alleged recording of the assault was not incidental cruelty; it was a weapon designed to enforce silence, to convert her trauma into a permanent instrument of blackmail. That she came forward anyway is an act of extraordinary courage. Whether we honour that courage — with a fair investigation, a speedy trial, and unwavering community support — will tell every other survivor in Kashmir whether it is safe to speak.
At the same time, serious allegations concerning a well-known school in Srinagar have circulated widely among parents and on social media. It must be stated clearly: these remain allegations, and no conclusions should be drawn before investigators establish the facts. Due process protects everyone — the accused, the institution, and above all the children whose welfare is at stake, because a botched or prejudged inquiry serves no one. But due process is not the same as delay, and it is certainly not the same as silence. The seriousness of what has been alleged demands a transparent, impartial, and time-bound inquiry, conducted by authorities empowered under the POCSO Act and the Juvenile Justice Act, with its findings communicated honestly to parents.
Notably, the Child Welfare Committee in Srinagar has already shown what institutional accountability can look like. In a recent case involving the sexual harassment of a young student at a city school, the Committee issued a detailed order identifying deficiencies in the school’s child protection mechanisms, directed a comprehensive child safety audit of all recognised schools in Srinagar, and mandated training for school heads and staff on safeguarding and reporting obligations. That order should not gather dust. It should become the template for how every institution in the Valley treats the safety of children — not as public relations, but as the first condition of its existence.
Because here is the uncomfortable truth every school management must internalise: no institution’s reputation is worth more than a single child’s safety. Parents do not send their daughters to school to protect a brand. They send them because they believe — they must believe — that the classroom is the safest place outside the home. Any institution that hesitates to report a complaint, that quietly transfers an accused employee, that pressures a family into silence to protect its name, has not protected its reputation. It has forfeited its right to one.
The numbers tell us this is not a conversation we can postpone. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Jammu and Kashmir recorded thousands of crimes against women in recent years — 3,716 cases in 2022 alone, including 287 reported rapes, and 3,366 cases in 2024, placing the Union Territory second only to Delhi among UTs. Behind the overwhelming majority of rape cases stands an offender known to the victim — a neighbour, a relative, an acquaintance, sometimes a person in a position of trust. And criminologists agree that recorded figures represent only a fraction of reality, because stigma, fear of retaliation, and concern for family honour keep countless survivors silent.
This is precisely why protection must be understood as more than duty. A duty is discharged and forgotten. A covenant is lived. It means every school — especially girls’ schools — must verify the background of every employee, maintain confidential complaint mechanisms, employ trained counsellors and approachable female staff, and document and act on every complaint without exception. It means police must treat survivors with dignity, investigate without delay, and pursue digital evidence with the same rigour shown in the Baramulla case. It means courts must deliver speedy trials, because justice that arrives after years of humiliation is justice diminished. It means institutions found to have buried complaints must themselves face legal consequences, because enabling abuse is a form of abuse.
And it means something from us — ordinary people. It means refusing to whisper about a survivor’s character. It means teaching our sons that a woman’s dignity is inviolable, not negotiable. It means standing with families who report, rather than isolating them. Our faith and our culture both teach that a child is an amanah — a sacred trust. A society that fails this trust cannot claim piety, and it cannot claim honour, no matter how loudly it invokes either.
Justice, in the end, is not achieved by arrests alone. Arrests are the beginning. Justice is a fair investigation, a fearless prosecution, a survivor supported instead of shamed, an institution reformed instead of shielded, and a community that chooses vigilance over comfortable silence.
Kashmir’s daughters are watching how we respond — to Baramulla, to the questions surrounding our schools, to every complaint that surfaces tomorrow. They are learning, case by case, whether this society values their safety or its own image. Let the answer be unmistakable: no reputation, no institution, and no individual stands above a child’s right to be safe. That is not merely our duty. It is our covenant — and covenants, once broken, are not easily restored.
