Teachers, principal arrested for threatening student

Two teachers and the principal of a school were arrested following a complaint that they assaulted a student and threatened his sister with dismissal if their mother lodged a complaint. Reshma, the mathematics teacher at the Koramangala private school; Mathew, the class teacher; and Shaji Sebastin, the school principal, were remanded in judicial custody.

The mother said in her complaint to the Koramangala police that her daughter and son study in the school in classes 10 and 8. On receiving information that the boy fell down, the mother rushed to the school and found him bleeding in the forehead.

While the boy told her that the math teacher Reshma hit him with a board duster, the principal denied it, saying the boy was lying to scare her. But when the mother asked him to summon the teacher, the principal said she had left for the day.

When the mother said she would file complaints with the police and the child helpline, the principal said they were ready for a compromise and offered to pay the boy’s medical bills. The mother took the boy to hospital, where doctors put two stitches to his wounds.

When she stayed home to take care of the boy and sent the girl to school, the school principal Shaji, school south head Shiju and AGM Srinivasa Reddy met her and tried convincing her against filing a police complaint. They offered to waive her children’s school fees and pay for her silence, but the woman refused.

Meanwhile, on December 18, the woman’s mother called her and said she was rushing from Bangarpet and asked her to fetch the girl from school. She said the girl had called her the previous day, saying her class teacher Mathew threatened to expel her if a police complaint was filed in her brother’s case.

The girl — who later confirmed that the teacher threatened her in the corridor — said she was too afraid to tell her mother and had instead called her grandmother. The victim’s mother then filed a police complaint.

The Koramangala police booked the trio under the Pocso Act, Juvenile Justice Act and other IPC sections for assaulting and threatening the minors.