ABU DHABI // A school cleaner has been sentenced to death for raping a seven-year-old girl in the school’s kitchen.
The Emirati girl was asked by her teacher to take documents to the school’s administration.
On her way out of the principal’s office the cleaner, I?K, 56, from India, pulled her inside the kitchen, knocked her to the floor, undressed and raped her, the court heard.
The pupil fought back and screamed and scratched I?K’s back before running off.
When she returned home later that day in April her aunt noticed a strange smell on the child’s clothes and that she was not acting normally.
She asked what was wrong and the girl said I?K had tried to scare her into remaining silent by threatening to kill her mother.
I?K was arrested soon after. Prosecutors said the cleaner confessed to the attacks during police interrogation, but denied the charge when he appeared in the Criminal Court.
He claimed his only contact with the girl was when she and her friends ran into his room to retrieve a ball.
“I just pushed her outside the room,” he said in an earlier hearing.
The court heard the pupil’s teacher wrote in her homework diary her parents should take her to an eye doctor because she was unable to read words written on the class board.
“This indicates the shocked state she was in,” explained the girl’s lawyer in a previous hearing.
I?K’s lawyer, however, argued the scenario sounded “unrealistic”.
“How could he have raped her during school hours without anyone noticing?”
He also said the victim’s statements were contradictory.
“First she said he raped her in the kitchen, then outside the kitchen and once she said while she was playing.”
He added the crime scene was visible though glass doors to people passing outside.
The girl’s family is also seeking Dh5 million in damages from both the school and the cleaner, citing the loss of the girl’s virginity, the psychological trauma she went through and the stigma she will face in later life.
Those damages will be ruled over by the civil court once the case passes through all criminal trial stages, including the court of first instance, appeals and cassation.
If I?K is convicted in all courts, the case will move to civil court.
hdajani@thenational.ae