Thousands of demonstrators have marched to demand arrests in the case of a six-year-old girl allegedly raped in a school in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Two staff members at the private school are accused of the rape on July 2, the latest in a string of sexual attacks that have stirred national outrage in India.
Parents accused school authorities of trying to shield suspects and "hush up the criminal act".
"The school management is trying to protect the accused as it failed to register a case when the (child) told her class teacher," Nandish Reddy, a parent, said on Saturday.
"We have submitted a memorandum to the city police commissioner (Raghavendra Auradkar) seeking the arrest of the culprits."
The school, which can't be named for legal reasons, has assured police of "full co-operation".
The protesters included parents from various schools around the high-tech city, including the one attended by the victim.
The demonstrators marched from the school where the rape allegedly happened to the police station in charge of the investigation.
The police commissioner appealed to the demonstrators to "have patience and bear with us".
"I request you to have faith in us. We are going to take action against the accused," Auradkar told the crowd.
Indian authorities have become far more alert to sexual crimes since the 2012 brutal gang-rape and murder of a student in the national capital New Delhi.
India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, has promised "zero tolerance" toward crimes against women while parliament has toughened anti-rape laws to include the death penalty for some offences.
But violence against women is deeply ingrained in some segments of Indian society, activists say, while government crime statistics show one rape is reported in the country of 1.2 billion people every 21 minutes.
Share
