Will your child be the next victim?

[updated on Children's day, 2010]

While at school, you might have seen or faced punishment (of various types) for a misdoing and sometimes for no wrong doing at all. Punishment could be just being asked to write a corrective sentence a hundred times on the board, being detained in school, being sent out of the class-room, facing corporal punishment¹ or even in some cases physical abuse.

Corporal punishment (and physical abuse), though clearly illegal in some states, is often meted out to students. There are enough news reports of kids loosing hearing after being slapped. There are also incidents of children committing suicide after being punished or insulted in school.

Surely, there are many more incidents that we could not locate on the web and many more which go un-reported. My four year old could be the next victim in a school, or it could your young apple of your eye.

We will keep naming schools (on this page) where these incidents happen (and get reported) and refuse to do business with them. Will you stand up, and refuse to send your child to any of these schools? Will the education boards take away affiliations from these schools?

¹Loosely defined as:  the use of physical force causing pain, but not wounds, as a means of discipline.

You will find below a list of some incidents which showed up after a quick search:

• Nov 12, 2010: Five year old Vamsi Varsha of K K Talent School, Suryapet, (Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh) got beaten by a school teacher for not having brought hi Telugu homework on Friday. The lashing left Vamsi with welts on his body. [update on children's day, 2010]
• Aug 2010: Abdul Gaffar Khan, a class X student of Rani Chennamma Memorial School on Mission Road (Bangalore) was made to do 200 sit-ups for coming in late to school. Abdul was later beaten up during the same day by the school secretary.
• Jul 2010: Class V student beaten up multiple times, by different teachers on multiple occasions at Jain Heritage School, Kempapura (Bangalore) - contribution from our readers
• Jul 2010: Parents of an VIIth standard student Siddharth Saha filed a case against six (not one) teachers including the principal of St. James High School, in Kolkata
• Jul 2010: Lakshmi, a class III student in Saharanpur committed suicide after being forced to clean the school toilet following the failure to pay the school fees on time.
• Feb 2010: Sunirmal Chakravarthy, principal of La Martinere, caned class VII student Rouvanjit Rawla. This was not the first time Rouvanjit was beaten in school by teachers. He proceeded to hang himself.
• Early 2010: Seven year old Priya Choudhury, of Tagore School Jhunjhunu (Raj.) lost vision in one eye after being thrashed by her teacher Pratibha Singh.
• Jul 2009: Class X student, Jagrup Singh died of severe beatings from his teacher at a Ludhiana school.
• Apr 2009: Shannoo Khan, a class II student of MCD school, Narela died after the class teacher (Manju) bashed the former’s head on the table and made her stand out in the sun. The fault – not being able to recite the English alphabet well.
• Mar 2009: 6 year old Sri Rohini (of St. Maria Annai Primary School, Tiruchi, TN) died after her teacher hit her on the head, locked her up in a cupboard and also threw her into a water tank.
• March 2009: A class V student of Holy Mission Academy School (in East Champaran, Bihar) was beaten to death by principal Uday Narayan Sharan.
• Aug 2008: An 11-year-old schoolboy vomited blood after he was hit by his principal in Dakshinpuri (Delhi)
• Jul 2008: A 13-year-old boy collapsed after he was beaten up by the principal at the MCD school, Mukherjee Nagar.
• Jul 2008: A 16-year-old student in Najafgarh alleged that his eardrums were damaged after his teacher thrashed him for being late to school by five minutes
• Mar 2008: A 15-year-old, class X, girl succumbed to her injuries after slipping into coma. The student of a privately run school was hit by her teacher for refusing his tuition
• July 2007: Arpit Kavadia, a class XII student, died of severe beatings by a teacher at his Udaipur school.