Bhopal: A private school teacher has been arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district after a Class 7 student alleged that he beat him up for raising slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’.
Adbul Wahid was arrested Saturday along with Mohammad Shareef, director of Green Bells Public School, where the alleged incident took place the same afternoon.
According to the FIR registered at Shahdol’s Budhar police station, the 13-year-old student, identified as Naitik Gupta, in his statement to the police claimed that at around 1.50 pm, as school hours ended, a few students started shouting slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’.
“Teacher Abdul Wahid, who was in the adjoining class, came to my class and asked who raised the slogans. Some students pointed towards me and Abdul Wahid slapped me 7-8 times. He also bent my head and hit me on the head and also on my back,” Naitik said in his statement.
Naitik further alleged that when he asked Wahid why he was being beaten up, the teacher said it was because he was chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’ and creating a ruckus in school. “When I told the teacher to ask others as well in class he refused and told me that he doesn’t need to ask others and again started beating me. He then took me to the principal. By alleging that I alone raised slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, teacher Abdul Wahid beat me up before the class and humiliated me,” Naitik further said in his statement.
According to the police complaint, Naitik along with some of his classmates then approached the principal, who allegedly said he cannot do anything as everything happens with the support of the director. Soon after this, Naitik’s father Rajendra Gupta, along with 50 other men gathered outside Budhar police station and raised slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, demanding that Green Bells Private School be shut down.
The FIR was registered under IPC sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 34 (common intention) as well as under the Juvenile Justice Act.
“Students were raising slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’ and some students complained that Abdul Wahid beat up the child continuously even as he kept asking why he was being beaten up. He was just beaten up for raising the slogan of ‘Jai Shree Ram’. It is my request to the district education officer that if such an incident happens, there should be proper checking and it should be stopped,” said Ajay Gupta, a resident of Shahdol who was among those who protested outside the police station.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Prateek Kumar told ThePrint: “Since it was a 13-year-old boy…based purely on his complaint, without going into the merits of the case, an FIR under relevant sections has been registered. Along with the teacher, the director has also been booked as he has a previous case against him from 2016 when the school had released a map where Kashmir was not shown as a part of India. The teacher and the director are being produced before the court and further investigation will follow.”
The SP further said that looking at the sensitivity of the matter, police personnel had been deployed to avoid any untoward incident.
Vikram Singh Gaur, supervisor at Green Bells Public School told ThePrint Abdul Wahid had been suspended as it is the school’s policy to not allow corporal punishment.
“During our internal inquiry, the schoolteacher Abdul Wahid told us that when one of the students of his class complained about hooting noises in the adjoining class, he went there with an intention to discipline. He hit Naitik on the back after which the student turned around and teasingly said that he had hit his bag instead, after which the teacher hit him once or twice more,” Gaur said.
He added that along with Wahid, the school’s principal Gurmeet Singh Lamba had also been suspended as he “was also found beating some other school students”.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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