Corporal punishment: 6-year-old’s arm broken by teacher

Family want school’s license to be cancelled, teacher sacked; CPO asks SHO to submit report in 48 hours.

FAISALABAD:

Family of a six-year-old whose arm was broken by his teacher at school in Dijkot here on Thursday staged a protest demonstration.

The protesters demanded that the teacher be arrested and the school’s license be cancelled. Scores of neighbours also joined the family in the protest.

Mirza Shehbaz, father of the child, told The Express Tribune that his son was a pre-school student at the Allama Iqbal Middle School in Karkhana Bazaar.

He said he was informed by the school management that his child had injured himself while playing during recess.



He said when he arrived at the school, he discovered that a teacher, Naseer Akram, had beaten him up apparently for disrupting the class. He said the teacher had also beaten some other children for making noise, but his son was severely injured. He said he took his son to a hospital, where doctors said that the boy’s right arm had a fracture.

The protesters criticised the school management for “lying” to the parent and allowing a teacher to be violent.

They demanded that the Education executive district officer cancel the school’s registration immediately and sack the teacher.

A police team arrived at the scene to stop the protesters, who were assured that the accused would soon be arrested and that the authority concerned would act against the school as well.

They were told that City Police Officer Haidar Ashraf had taken notice of the incident and ordered the Dijkot station house officer to probe the matter.

Police said the SHO would submit a report to the CPO in 48 hours.

When contacted, Shafiq Anwar, the school’s spokesman, refused to comment. The teacher, too, was not available for comments.

Family want missing woman, child recovered

Also on Thursday, scores of people from Chak 254-RB in Mazhabiwala, staged a protest demonstration in front of the office of the regional police officer on Thursday seeking recovery of a missing woman and her niece.

The protesters gathered on University Road and blocked it for several hours.

They carried banners and shouted slogans against the police for their failure to recover the two.

Sabir Sultan, husband of the missing woman, said that his wife had left home for the market, when she was abducted. He said her one-year-old niece was also with her.

He said he registered an FIR with Dijkot police, but no step had yet been taken for their recovery.

He said every time he contacted the police to ask them about the progress of the case, he said, they would tell him to stop pursuing them.

Muhammad Hussain, the RPO’s representative, arrived at the scene.

He assured the protesters that the missing woman and the child would soon be recovered and that the kidnappers would be arrested soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2014.