HYDERABAD: In what appears to be a gruesome case of corporal punishment , a three-year-old student of a pre-primary school in Saroornagar was allegedly locked in an empty room for more than four hours for three days. The child is believed to be in a state of shock and depression.

The parents allege that their son, studying at Little Gems School , was subjected to this 'punishment' following an argument that broke out between them and the school principal a few days ago. The matter came to the fore after the parents themselves saw the boy being locked inside a room away from the rest of his classmates.

"We had gone to the school last week to discuss with the authorities about shifting our child to another school in the next academic year. The conversation ended with a minor argument with the principal. Then, after three days when we went to the school again we saw our boy missing from his classroom and locked in another room instead. The teachers told us that it had been happening for three days," said A Preethi, mother of the victim, further claiming that they were not allowed to talk to the boy from outside the room.

The parents immediately reported the matter to deputy education officer, C Rohini and sought an official intervention. When contacted, Rohini said, "We have learnt of the incident and we are in the process of investigating it." If accusations were found to be true, they would cancel the licence of the school, she added.

The local police, meanwhile, claimed they had no information about the incident.

Andhra Pradesh has the dubious distinction of recording highest number of corporal punishment cases in the country. Only last month, a class X student at a city school suffered a break down and died after allegedly being forced to do sit-ups by his teacher. Within 48 hours of this incident, the principal of a school in Guntur was charged for allegedly beating up students for not adhering to the dress code.

"We get at least a dozen complaints of corporal punishment from parents across the twin cities every week. Teachers in many schools are not trained to treat children with care which lead to such incidents. The result of something as seemingly trivial as doing sit-ups in front of the class can have a severe impact on the mental well-being of the child and must not be ignored," said Shanth Kumar Goel, president of the Andhra Pradesh Parents' Association.

