The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has called for an action-taken report (ATR) report from the Centre and the State Government over alleged torture and deaths at a Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalay (JNV) in Bhadrak district.
Acting on a petition filed by rights campaigner Subash Mohaptra of the city-based Global Human Rights Communications, the rights panel on Mondaysought the ATR from the Human Resources Development Ministry and the Chief Secretary within four weeks.
The petition was filed after a girl student of the JNV in the Basudevpur area allegedly faced verbal abuse from her English teacher when she went to school to appear for her exam on March 22
“The English teacher allegedly chided her and threatened to give her a ‘B’ grade. She returned home crying, but was sent back to school by her parents after being consoled. But the teacher again allegedly castigated her following which she slashed her wrist with a razor kept in her geometry box. However, she was saved after proper treatment,” the petitioner said.
The petitioner alleged that on September 15 last year, another girl student namely Truptimayee of the same school had committed suicide allegedly due to harassment by two women teachers.
“Her father lodged an FIR where he had accused teachers, Priyambada Samal and Chalantika Parida, of torturing her. School principal K Kripanandanam only disengaged a contractual teacher Chalantika Parida from her service after the incident while another teacher Samal in on leave on health grounds. None of the victims and their families has been provided any compensation,” the petitioner contended.
The petitioner has sought the rights panel to direct the Centre and the State to remove the teacher from service and take all the steps to bring the culprits into court of justice, along with Rs10 lakh compensation to each of the victims.