A shocking case of corporal punishment with a twist has been reported from a school in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday. A class six girl student of a school in MP’s Jhabua district was allegedly slapped 168 times by her classmates for not completing her homework.
The students slapped the girl after one of their teachers asked them to do so. The teacher, Manoj Verma, himself has shamelessly admitted to his crime.
The incident took place at Navoday school in Thandla town of the state. The father of the victim has filed a police complaint against Verma on Wednesday.
The girl told the police that she had to go through the ordeal as she failed to finish her homework. The victim added that she had taken leave due to an illness and thus failed to do her assignments.
“This made the teacher angry, and he instructed my 14 classmates to slap me twice every day until the assignment was finished,” the student said in her complaint. As the student took six days–from January 11 to 16–to finish her homework, thus she ended up being slapped 168 times by her friends. When confronted with the incident, Verma said to have justified the punishment.
The teacher told the girl’s father that the Right to Education Act (RTE) forbids corporal punishment by teachers, but does not prevent other students from doing so.
Shiv Sagar, the school’s principal, told the girl’s father that it was a “friendly punishment, where the classmates did not hit her hard, so she could perform better in the future.”
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