India school principal held for 'covering up' student rape

The school's staff has been charged for trying to cover up the crime

The principal of a boarding school and four members of staff are among nine people arrested over the rape of a 15-year-old student in northern India.

Four male students have been held for the rape, which left the girl pregnant, while the school staff are accused of covering up the assault.

Staff at the Dehradun school forced the girl to have an abortion after they found out she was pregnant, police say.

A medical examination on Wednesday confirmed she was raped, police said.

"We have registered a case of gang rape, criminal conspiracy and have charged the school's officials for causing disappearance of evidence," police officer Naresh Rathore told the BBC.

The assault has prompted the state government to cancel the school's educational licence, according to the Times of India newspaper.

Police said that management at the GRD World School in Dehradun had been aware of the rape for a month and "took no action against the accused". They added that staff also threatened to expel the victim when she approached the school.

The school and its arrested staff members have not commented on the case yet.

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The state's Child Welfare Committee (CWC), which has investigated the incident, said that school officials "pressured" and "harassed" the victim into keeping quiet.

"The school's staff went to the extent of sending two members to pose as the victim's parents when they took her to the private nursing home for a medical check up," Kavita Sharma of the CWC told the BBC.

The victim's sister, who found out about the incident, informed their parents who registered a complaint against the school.

Scrutiny of sexual violence has grown in India since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in the capital Delhi.

The crime sparked days of protests and forced the government to introduce tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty.

However, attacks against women and children continue to be reported across the country.

India's crime records show that reported rapes of minor children had more than doubled between 2012 and 2016. Their data also shows a 12% rise in the number of sexual assault cases against women- up from 34,651 cases in 2015 to 38,947 in 2016.