By IANS,
Kolkata : A team from the Visva-Bharati University Wednesday visited the house of the 10-year-old girl, four days after she was allegedly made to lick her own urine in the varsity hostel as a punishment for bedwetting. The team, however, did not offer any apology for the trauma the victim endured.
After the Class 5 student’s parents lodged a complaint against her warden Uma Poddar, the university authorities claimed the warden asked the girl to lick her own urine since she believed the practice would cure the student of bed-wetting.
Led by registrar Manimukut Mitra, the three-member university delegation requested the parents to allow their daughter to resume classes at Patha Bhavan, the school at the university in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, but the parents refused.
“My daughter has suffered too much torture. She starts crying whenever we refer to the school. It will be a crime if I persuade her to return to Visva-Bharati,” said father of the girl Manoj Mistry.
He answered in the negative when asked whether the university team apologised for the incident.
Mistry Tuesday said that the girl was yet to recover from the shock and finding it difficult to cope with the situation. She has fervently requested her parents to admit her to another school.
The university authorities have drawn flak from all quarters on the issue.
The police, after being rebuked by the court for going “soft” on the warden, have lodged a case under Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act which deals with cruelty to a child and has a maximum punishment of six months imprisonment or fine or both.
The incident has been reported to the Prime Minister’s Office, while the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has sought detailed reports from the university and the state government on the incident.
West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan has also reportedly asked for a report.
According to the complaint filed by the parents, the incident occurred Saturday evening when Poddar, while on an inspection, pulled up the girl for bed-wetting. She allegedly then sprinkled salt on the urine and made the girl lick her urine as a punishment.
After the girl told her mother about the ordeal, her parents and several other people stormed the hostel premises and allegedly manhandled Poddar.
Following the incident, the university set up a four-member fact-finding committee, headed by former dean of students welfare Aruna Mukherjee, to probe the matter.
Acting on the report, the university relieved Poddar of her duty as warden.