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Pune tuition teacher in police custody for injuring 3-year-old with beating at class
Rajashree Ravi Pillai, a 28-year-old private tutor, hit Dev with a wooden ruler on Tuesday, according to Laxmi Kashyap, Dev's 24-year-old mother who works as a domestic help.
Dev Kashyap, a three-year-old cried out in pain at the KEM hospital due to his throbbing head injury, while the person who inflicted the injury was sent to one day police custody by a local court.
Rajashree Ravi Pillai, a 28-year-old private tutor, hit Dev with a wooden ruler on Tuesday, according to Laxmi Kashyap, Dev's 24-year-old mother who works as a domestic help. Laxmi enrolled her children with the tutor in one of the residential buildings where she works, two months ago. Dev used to accompany his 5-year-old sister to the tuition class for the past two months, as their parents went to work.
On Monday evening, Dev's grandmother picked the two children up at 7 pm from the tutor's house situated in Amrita Colony along Satpute Road, close to their own house which is located in Bhau Nagar, also along Satpute Road.
When their grandmother went inside the tutor's house, she found Dev lying on the floor.
Pillai told the old woman that her grandchild had fallen asleep and sent them home. However, when the three returned home, Dev drank water without opening his eyes and started vomiting, according to his mother.
"His grandmother told me this when I returned home from work around 7 pm. I rushed him to Matoshree hospital where the doctor told me that if he vomits again through the course of the night, he will have to be admitted," Laxmi told Hindustan Times.
On Tuesday morning, Dev's eyes had swollen enough to block his sight, his mother said. His sister then told them that the teacher had hit him the previous night, Laxmi said. "I asked the people around what to do next and spoke to Pillai Miss as well. She asked me to not approach the police in order to save her reputation and took me to another private hospital which recommended a CT scan. We took the reports back to the private hospital where the doctors said everything was normal," an exasperated Laxmi explained.
Laxmi said that when the tutor took the doctor aside and started speaking to him in private, she decided to approach the police post near Dinosaur Garden who directed them to the Sangvi police station.
The Sangvi police refused to register their complaint on Tuesday and instead gave them a note asking the Aundh General Hospital to carry out necessary tests, Laxmi said.
What followed was a series of visits to hospitals, including Sassoon General hospital. The swelling under Dev's eyes only got worse, however, according to Laxmi.
On Wednesday night the police registered a case against Pillai.
A case under Section 324 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 75 of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 was registered at Sangvi police station.
The investigation officer in the case is police sub inspector Shete of Sangvi police station. Pillai was arrested at 11am on Thursday morning and produced in the Morwadi court.
Dev was admitted to KEM hospital. The doctors there told Hindustan Times that he has suffered a head injury and the resultant bleeding caused a purple swelling under his eyes. "We are getting a CT scan done in order to ascertain whether there is a fracture in his skull. If there is a fracture, we will have to decide whether to operate on his or treat it with medicines," according to a resident doctor of KEM.
The tutor, who teaches around 10 children in the area, will be taken to Faraskhana police station lock-up until the next hearing.