Only months after Rouvanjit Rawla, a Class 8 student of La Martiniere for Boys, committed suicide allegedly following corporal punishment, yet another student of a city school tried to end his life by consuming sleeping pills allegedly after being reprimanded by his Hindi teacher. An FIR was lodged by the student’s father at the Kalighat police station and the teacher was arrested on Tuesday on the basis of the suicide note found in the boy’s school notebook.
Mohammed Sharjil Khan, a Class 12 student of St. Helen School, was found in an unconscious state in the washroom of his school at around 12.30 pm on Monday. According to Sharjil’s father Mohammed Nasir Khan, a a resident of Ekbalpur, the school authorities informed the boy’s mother at around 3.30 pm and took him to a private hospital in south Kolkata. “My son had to be admitted there. My son has blamed his Hindi teacher Namita Nag for taking this drastic step,” Mr Khan said.
He also alleged that Sharjil was regularly subjected to mental torture in the hands of this teacher. “My son was often reprimanded by Ms Nag in front of the other students without any reason. He could not bear the humiliation any further on Monday and was thus forced to take the drastic step,” Mr Khan claimed.
Principal of the school, S.K. Singh, denying the claim of Sharjil’s parents, said: “The teacher is a nice lady and has a good rapport with the students.” On the other hand, the students and their guardians staged demonstration on Tuesday and demanded that the accused teacher should be sacked immediately.
Following the arrest of the teacher, Ms Nag was booked on charges of mental torture under Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2006, said a senior officer of the Kalighat police station. “Late in the afternoon, the teacher’s lawyer furnished a bail bond against which she was freed,” the officer added.