A teacher at a private school in Hyderabad sent an 11-year-old girl to the boys’ washroom on Saturday as punishment for not wearing her uniform, according to media reports.
The government of Telangana ordered a probe into the incident after the Andhra Pradesh Child Rights Association lodged complaints on Monday with the State Human Rights Commission and the police.
Association president P Achyuta Rao said he has demanded action against the school’s staff and management. He said confining a girl to the boys’ washroom constituted sexual abuse, according to The Hindu. Students’ unions staged a protest at the school on Monday morning, demanding that punitive action be taken.
Rao said he received a complaint from the girl’s father, A Ramakrishna, on Sunday, saying his daughter, a Class 5 student at Rao’s High School, Old MIG, BHE in Ramachandrapuram on the city’s outskirts, had been mistreated.
Her physical education teacher, Priyanka, stopped her when she entered and asked her the reason she was not dressed appropriately. and the girl her it was being washed. Priyanka took her to the boys’ washroom on the first floor and made her stand there for some time before being permitted to return to class.
“Some students from Class 4 saw me in the washroom and laughed at me. I felt very bad and ashamed,” the girl said in a video her father sent to the child rights association.
Ramakrishna said in the complaint: “After returning home in the evening, my daughter was crying all through the night and is now refusing to go the school again. She wants me to shift her to another school.”
Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao tweeted: “Ridiculous and absolutely inhuman. Will take it up with Hon’ble Deputy CM education [Kadiyam Srihari] for appropriate action on the school.”
Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, physical as well “mental harassment” of students is prohibited.