A 17-year-old schoolboy of a private school in Udaipur died on Thursday, allegedly due to the thrashing given by his female teacher a week ago.
Though the school authorities denied that the boy died of corporal punishment, the police have booked the schoolteacher on murder
charges.
The school has suspended the accused Sanskrit teacher Indira Samar. “The boy did not die of thrashing but we have suspended the teacher for giving him corporal punishment, which is banned in our school,” Pradeep Kumawat, director of the Alok Senior Secondary School where the boy was studying, told HT.
Arpit Kawadia, a class XII student, was admitted to the M.B. Hospital in Udaipur on Monday.
Arpit’s father Sampat Raj alleged that the schoolteacher caned his son for making noise during an examination on July 26.
At the hospital, the boy’s condition deteriorated and he breathed his last on Thursday. Soon after, residents, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and Shiv Sena activists demonstrated outside the school situated in Sector-11, Moti Magari area.
Police security was provided at the school as well as at the teacher’s residence.
Deputy SP (Udaipur rural), Yogesh Goyal, told HT: “We would wait for the postmortem report of the boy before taking any further action.” He said initial reports suggested that the schoolboy received injuries on his ribs and left hand. Hospital sources said the boy had blood-clotting in his lungs.
Sampat told police that his son’s classmates were eyewitness to the whole incident. The accused, however, could not be reached for a comment.
The school director, however, said the boy had attended school for two days after the thrashing and showed no sign of grave injury.