She paid a heavy price for not completing her homework. 7-year-old Piya can’t see with her left eye anymore. Her parents say it happened when her teacher slapped her on the eye for not doing her homework. Since then, they have been running from pillar to post to get justice for their daughter.
The incident occurred on July 7 at a prestigious private school in Jhunjhunu where the girl studies. The local police had filed a criminal complaint against the teacher Pratibha Singh for causing injury. But the school management vehemently denied any such incident.
Piya’s father Virendra Singh Choudhary is an officer with Indian Army while most of her relatives also serve in the Army. “We are in pain, no one is ready to listen to us in Jhunjhunu because of the clout of the institution and its influential directors,” says Piya’s mother Omwati.
Piya was taken to several hospitals including the Army hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi but doctors opined that it was difficult to restore her lost vision.
Her mother Omwati lodged an FIR against the teacher Pratibha but the police made it a bailable offence and the teacher was immediately bailed out. “Acting on FIR lodged by her mother, we have filed the case in the court, we did our best,” says Jhunjhunu superintendent of police, Amit Lamba. But Omwati says local administration as well as media also sided with the school.
“My entire family has been serving the country,but we were denied justice,” says Omwati with chocked voice. “As a mother, I was dreaming to see Piya as a bright Army officer, but all my dreams are shattered,” she says. The school management threatened my family, she says.
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Student caned, in hospital
Rangiya (Assam), Aug. 19: A Class 7 student was seriously injured and had to be hospitalised after being allegedly caned by the headmaster of his school in Assam’s Kamrup (Rural) district, on Thursday, official sources said.
The boy, Noor Hussain of Borigog Balak Vidyalaya, was allegedly talking and making noises in the class when the headmaster, Pabitra Sarmah, entered the classroom and began caning the boy without asking any questions, they added.
The boy fainted and the headmaster himself rushed him to a local hospital from where he was referred to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital as he was seriously injured, they said.
Meanwhile, the police said they would question the headmaster.
—PTI