india

Updated: Jul 28, 2019 09:50 IST

In a shocking case of child abuse in Odisha’s tribal-dominated Nabarangpur district, a teacher allegedly thrashed seven primary school students so viciously over their inability to pronounce and give correct meaning of a word.that they had to be hospitalised.

On Friday, the third standard students in the government-run Murtuma Sevashram school in Umarkote, about 500 km Southwest of Bhubaneswar were asked the meaning of a word by their teacher Jayantibala Bhatra. Seven of the students could not pronounce the words which angered Bhatra who started beating the kids by hand. “She then picked up a stick and started thrashing them,” Block Education Officer Bikash Chandra Sarkar .quoted the parents the children telling him.

The kids suffered bruises on their back and hands, but were too scared to tell anyone. While five of the students staying in the hostel were asked to keep mum over the incident, two of the students who lived in a local village told their parents about the thrashing.

Sarkar said the matter became public when the hostel superintendent admitted five of the students to the community health centre of Umerkote. “All schools have been declared as punishment-free zones. I have ordered a probe into the incident,” said Sarkar.

The woman teacher has been absconding since the matter came to light.

Odisha banned corporal punishment in schools in 2004 following strings of allegations of teachers beating up students. It said severe disciplinary action would be taken against such teachers. It even started a telephone helpline for students to report in case they are physically punished by teachers.

But despite that there have been several incidences of teachers preferring to wield the stick on the kids. In 2010, an 11-year-old student in Bargarh district died after he was beaten by his teacher on his chest.

After beating the student, the teacher had asked some seven other students to beat up the boy.