Four school kids thrashed for ‘tearing’ CPM campaign board

The Four children who were hospitalised with injuries after teachers at a local lower primary school in Kozhikode persecuted them brutally on Tuesday over an allegation that the former had torn a board of the CPI(M) on Wednesday continued to be in a state of shock. Two of the children said they did not want to go back to the school.

However, local residents argued that the children had not touched the board, as alleged by a CPI(M) grama panchayat member. They also pointed out that the board was fixed far above the level of the kids’ reach.

The persecution of the kids by two teachers was on a complaint by a CPI(M) member of the local panchayat to the authorities of the Government Lower Primary School at Chennoth near Chathamangalam that the kids had torn a board fixed for the campaign of the conference of the Chathamangalam local committee of the CPI(M).

After receiving the complaint the school authorities, instead of asking the children about the truth of the matter or informing the parents, had called a special assembly of the school at noon and started beating up the four children.

The four children said that their teacher Muhammad had beaten them with a thick ‘konna’ tree-branch at the verandah of the school and then women teacher Sindhu took over the job of persecuting the children inside the classroom. The children had to be taken to the hospital in a state of shock and physical pain and injuries.

While two of the children, Ajin Dev and Akhil Dev, both eight years old, are Class Four students two, Anoy and Sobin (both seven) are studying in Class Three.

The children confirmed that they were beaten up by both the teachers. The school authorities also asked them to come to bring Rs 100 each as fine for the crime. They were also told that they would not be allowed to attend classes if they did not come with their parents the next day (Wednesday). The kids also said that they did not want to go back to that school.

Parents of the children said the teachers had behaved in violation of all norms and without human considerations. They said they would not have been pained so much if the teachers had punished their children for being lazy or for other crimes. But to punish kids on unfounded complaints was illegal as well as inhuman, they said.

“What should a teacher do when such a complaint is received? They should either inform us. Or send kids home, to inform us. They could have talked with us so that we, on our own, would punish our kids. We are not sending our children to school to let politically motivated teachers to persecute them,” said a parent.

Local residents also were quite enraged by the behaviour of the school authorities. “We are quite sure that the children had not torn the board. The board was not at kids reach. Even if the children had done that they would not have done that deliberately with anti-CPI(M) intentions,” said a local resident.

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