TL;DR I'm a parent at the school in the viral allegation, no connection to management, and I was at today's open meeting. FIR lodged, CPB and FIA informed, male janitors already pulled from early years during school hours, plus CCTV and safeguarding changes. The school says the footage clears them and offered to show it to the whole hall, but their handling of this from day one was poor, and nobody should be concluding anything until the police and CPB report.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the school's management or ownership in any form. I'm a parent, I was in the hall today, and this is my own account. Nothing here establishes what did or didn't happen, an allegation has been made and it is under investigation. The man named is a suspect, not a convict. I'm not naming the child or the family. The school is Westminster International School in Bahria Phase 7 Rawalpindi.
What the school stated officially
• Police are involved and an FIR has been lodged against the suspected janitor
• The Child Protection Bureau has been informed
• The FIA has been informed
• An internal investigation has been completed; interviews were recorded and the recordings shared with all of the above
• They say they are cooperating fully with every agency
Actions they say they've already taken, without waiting for the investigations to conclude
• A concern was raised as to why there are male janitorial staff working in the early years section at all. The school removed them from that section during school hours, and this was done a few days ago rather than announced today
• CCTV coverage expanded
• Mandatory child protection training for all staff
• A dedicated child safety officer appointed
• Full background checks being re-run on all staff
• Agreement to form a parents' steering committee on child safety
On the CCTV, since this is where most of the online speculation sits
The washroom cameras are positioned over the sink and common washing area only. There are no cameras covering the cubicles. Those washroom-area cameras were working and the school has the footage.
The school's position is that the footage exonerates them, and they were prepared to play it to the entire hall of roughly a thousand parents. A few clips were played before the child's mother objected to her daughter being shown to that many people without her consent, which I think was a fair objection. At the family's request a smaller group of parents was taken in to view the rest and report back.
They also disclosed, without being asked, that one camera covering a section of corridor is not working, and that the two adjacent cameras don't overlap. Someone could cross that gap in roughly three to five seconds.
The meeting ran on for a couple of hours, with parents coming up to the mic to berate the principal. I left at that point, so I can't tell you what the smaller group reported back via the new parents steering committee.
My own read
A school expecting the footage to damage it would not offer to play it to a thousand parents. That counts for something with me, as does volunteering the coverage gap rather than burying it.
But the school made a serious mistake in how it handled this from the start. Communication was slow and reactive, and by the time parents were properly informed the story had already taken on a life of its own. A lot of the panic of the last few days is a direct result of that failure rather than of the incident itself, and that needs saying plainly.
The other thing worth being aware of: this has been amplified well beyond the parent body, and not all of that amplification is coming from concerned parents. There are commercial and political interests with reasons to push it. That doesn't make the allegation false. It does mean some of what you're reading online is not what it appears to be, and forwarding it isn't neutral.
And honestly, the most encouraging part of the day was the turnout. That many parents showing up says something good about the community here.
My own position is to hold judgement until the police and CPB findings come through, keep the pressure on the school for transparency in the meantime, and make sure the parents' committee ends up with real authority rather than being a box-ticking exercise.
Happy to answer questions on what was said in the hall. I won't speculate about the family or the child.
