The parents of a class 5 student of a private school in south Delhi claimed their son was beaten up by two senior students while boarding the school bus on Tuesday. They also alleged that despite informing a school teacher about the incident, no action was taken.
The boy’s father has also written an email to the school principal and the headmistress about the incident. “According to my son, there were two students from a higher class who abused him verbally and physically today. Apparently, one of the students strangled him and other child kept on hitting him on his abdomen, chest and face,” the email said.
The victim is “feeling suffocated” and “is in a state of shock and has been constantly crying” after the incident, the boy’s father said in the email. “Allegedly the teacher responsible for taking the attendance did not take the matter seriously and asked them (accused and the victim) to leave merely saying ‘go or I shall take you to the principal’,” the email said.
The boy’s father said he was worried about the attitude of the school in dealing with the issue. “My problem is not so much with the students involved in the abuse (the accused), my problem is with the school and teachers for their naive attitude related to child abuse. We leave our children in the school for almost six hours daily with enormous amount of faith and trust. I would strongly recommend conducting sensitisation sessions with such children and their parents,” he said.
He urged the school authorities to initiate an inquiry into the matter. “We all know most of the times, the children do not report any form of abuse and that goes unattended. You would appreciate consequences of such incidence are long term affecting their health, survival, development, dignity, trust or power. I would recommend and urge you to initiate an enquiry and share the findings,” the boy’s father said.
He said his son held the shoulder of a boy as he was about to slip while boarding the bus. “These two boys, who study in a higher standard, saw him holding that boy by the shoulder and questioned my son. They attacked my son. The boy whose shoulder my son held did not say a word to my son but the other two boys had issues,” he told PTI.
Calls and messages to the school principal went unanswered, PTI reported.