Principal, bus driver held for corporal punishment to Class 2 student in Panipat
The arrested accused have been identified as Reena, the principal, and Ajay, the bus driver of Srijan Public School
A day after the principal and a bus driver of a private school in Panipat were booked for alleged corporal punishment given to a 7-year-old, Class 2 student for not doing his homework, the police on Monday said that the both were arrested for the crime.
The arrested accused have been identified as Reena, the principal, and Ajay, the bus driver of Srijan Public School. The police produced both accused in court on Monday, where they were granted two days of police custody.
Model Town police station in-charge, sub-inspector Jagminder, stated that during interrogation, both accused admitted to committing the crime together. “Interrogation also revealed that the principal used to ask the children to collect garbage at the school, and the driver would force the children to call him ‘chacha’. Children who refused to comply were threatened and intimidated. During questioning, both accused stated that the child was somewhat mischievous. To teach him a lesson, on August 22, they tied the child’s legs with a rope in a room and hung him upside down from a window,” he said.
The child was then slapped by Ajay and threatened him that if he revealed this to anyone, they would do it again, police said.
The matter came to light as Ajay had taken a photo of the child on his phone and sent it to an acquaintance, who then shared it on social media.
According to the complaint registered on Saturday, the mother of the school boy, alleged that she spotted a video on social media, in which her son, who is enrolled in Class 2 at the school, was seen tied upside down with a window and the bus driver was seen beating him up.
Following the woman’s complaint, the Model Town police station registered a case under sections 115(2), 127(2), 351(2) of the BNS Act and section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act.
Rights commission takes note of the incident
Chairman of the Haryana Human Rights Commission, justice Lalit Batra along with members Kuldeep Jain and Deep Bhatia took a meeting with SP Bhupendra Singh, ADC Pankaj Yadav and the DEO Rakesh Bura, in Panipat to gather information about the incident.
At the meeting, the DEO informed that the school was operating without recognition and that a notice had been issued to close it.Despite the notice, the school operator continued to operate the school as per her own wishes, ignoring administrative regulations, the DEO said.
According to information, the school operator keeps changing the school’s location. Previously, the school was operating in the Refinery Township village of Dadlana. To prevent such incidents from occurring in the future, DC Virender Kumar Dahiya directed the DEO to inspect all schools in the district that are not operating in accordance with government regulations. Those schools should be closed and action should be taken against the operators, the DC said.
