By IANS
Patna : A Dalit boy in a Bihar village became blind in one eye after teachers of his government school, including the headmaster, beat him up severely for demanding more food during the mid-day meal. The headmaster has been suspended.
Nine-year-old Navin Kumar Paswan, a Class 4 student of a government school in Aujapauchha village in Purnea district, lost the vision of one eye after headmaster Rajendra Jaiswal and class teacher Shekhar Bharti beat him brutally last Saturday.
“Both of them assaulted me and passed derogatory remarks about my caste,” Paswan told IANS.
Paswan’s father Shivji Paswan lodged a complaint at Rupauli police station on Sunday against the two teachers. The boy was first taken to a local primary health centre where doctors referred him to a district hospital for treatment.
The headmaster has been suspended. “The administration will not spare anybody,” Sridhar Cherevelle, district magistrate of Purnea, said Tuesday.
The incident comes a few days after three Dalit girls, Class I students of Kasturba Gandhi Residential Girls School in Saharsa district, were allegedly branded with a hot iron for refusing to clean the classroom as directed by the school warden.
Warden Sandhya Rani directed the girls to clean the floor with a brush, but they refused saying they were suffering from abdominal pain. An angry Sandhya then branded them with a hot iron for disobedience.
The district administration ordered a probe after local dailies reported the incident.
“The case of inhuman torture of Dalit girls has come to our notice. Bihar Police chief A.R. Sinha has been directed to take appropriate action against the school authorities,” Saharsa district magistrate N.K. Choudhary said.
Earlier this month, a Dalit woman employed to cook mid-day meals in a village school in Rohtas district was barred by upper caste Hindu men, but the government announced that she would continue to cook the meals.