DEHRADUN: The hostel at the Children Home Academy in Ranipokhari where 12-year-old Vasu Yadav was brutally thrashed and passed away due to internal injuries on March 10, was running without registration since 1959, an investigation by the education department has revealed.

Chief education officer (CEO), Dehradun , Asha Rani Painyuli, told TOI, “While the school is registered, our officials found that the hostel which was running as an orphanage was not registered. There were no papers available at all with the hostel officials.” All orphanages have to be registered under Juvenile Justice ( Care and Protection of Children) Act.

The education department also found that even though officials claimed that the hostel was an orphanage, it actually had many students who were not orphans.

“A number of students in the hostel were from states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and had family back home,” said a report prepared by block education officer Ranjit Singh Rana who visited the school.

The education department found that the hostel, a km from the school, was being run separately by a trust named Children Home Society.

The school principal had also claimed that since Vasu was beaten up in the hostel, the school was not responsible. After his death, the boy’s body had been buried by school authorities in the hostel premises.

The education department’s report flagged off various other security concerns as well. The report submitted to Painyuli, a copy of which is available with TOI, said, “There are no CCTVs or security guards at the boys’ hostel which has 90 occupants.”

The school which provides free education to students from economically weaker sections has 400 students enrolled in it at present.

