In a second shocking instance of corporal punishment in Maharashtra, the Pune police have arrested a teacher of a reputed residential school for allegedly slapping and banging the head of a student onto a wooden bench for failing to complete his class assignment.

Such was the nature of the alleged corporal punishment that the 11-year-old suffered facial paralysis. He is now being treated in a private hospital in Pune.

Acting on a complaint from the parents of the victim student, Pune’s Shivajinagar police arrested Arts teacher Sandeep Gade late on Monday evening for allegedly clobbering a student for the latter’s failure to complete a class assignment.

Assistant Police Inspector attached to the  Shivajinagar police station Sagar Garud confirmed Gade's arrest.

 “We have booked on under section 325 (Punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. We produced the accused teacher before a Pune court today and obtained his custody till November 15. We also had the victim student medically examined at the state-run Sassoon Hospital”, he told The Pioneer on Tuesday

Under section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 which deals with punishment for cruelty to child, the accused teacher -- if proved guilty of the offence registered against him – will have to undergo rigorous imprisonment which may extend up to five years, and a fine which may extend up to five lakhs rupees.

The incident of corporal punishment took place at the Shri Shivaji Preparatory Military School (SSPMS), a government-aided residential school in Shivajinagar offering basic military training on its syllabus, on October 25.

The parents have told the police and the school management that they came to know of the incident when they visited the residential school on November 3 to bring their son studying in Class VI for the Diwali vacations.  During the visit, the parents noticed some abnormalities on the left side of his face, but did not take it seriously.

“After some days, we found the flaws on our son’s face become prominent. The son hid his face covered with a cloth, we realized something was amiss. After we quizzed him, our son revealed that he was alleged slapped and his head banged on a wooden bench by Arts teacher Gade for failing to complete a drawing project,” the parents told the police in their complaint. 

“Though the incident happened on October 25  before our terminal examinations, we were informed about it by the parents yesterday. We have suspended the concerned teacher and appointed a committee of enquiry,” SSPMS Principal Smita S Patil said.

According to the principal, 48-year-old Gade has been working as an arts teacher in the government-aided school for the 15 years. The school has 550 residential students on its rolls. “We had not received any such complaint about Gade or any other teacher at any time in the past. We have appointed a special committee to investigate the incident. On the basis of the recommendation made by the inquiry, we will decide on providing medical aid or compensation to the student,” Patil said.

This is the second major incident of corporal punishment reported in Maharashtra during the current year. Earlier in the second week of April this year,   a government school teacher had thrust a wooden cane down an eight-year-old student’s throat for the latter’s failure to solve a mathematical problem in a Zilla Parishad school at Pimpalwadi village in Ahmednagar district 0f western Maharashtra.

The incident had taken place in a Zilla Parishad school at Pimpalwadi in Karjat taluka of Ahmednagar district. After class-II student Rohan made a mistake in solving a problem given in the class, an enraged Mathematics teacher Chandrakant Sopan Shinde had shoved a wooden cane down the student’s throat.  As a result, Rohan’s wind pipe (trachea) and food pipe (Esophagus) had been badly damaged and he was rendered speechless.

After Rohan fell down in the class, choking and writhing in pain with blood oozing out of his severely damaged throat.  Despite efforts, he was in no position to utter a word. Rohan was initially rushed to a hospital at the nearby temple town of Rashin, from where he was shifted to a hospital in Pune after his condition deteriorated. Subsequently, acting on the child’s mother  Sunita Janjire  complaint with the Karjat taluka Police Station, the police had arrested teacher Shinde.