Teachers turn pupils into item girls

Close on the heels of the top Andhra Pradesh police officer blaming the ‘provocative’ dress worn by rural women for the rise in nu­mber of rapes, an incident of school girls being made to dance le­wd item numbers by their sc­ho­ol teachers has rocked the year-end celebrations in the state.

Forty-five students, including 30 girls of government upper primary school of Narasi­mugudem village of Warangal district, in the age group of 7-13 were asked by their teachers to dance to erotic songs of film on the late Silk Smitha and also latest item numbers of Telugu film ‘Pokiri’, ‘Dabangg’ and ‘Ra-One’. The teachers had taken the school children on an annual excursion to the Laknavaram lake, 35 km from Warangal town on December 26. The incident occurred at the camp fire congregation at the government guest house. “Five male teachers including the headmaster, and two wo­men teachers, watched the obscene dances performed by the teenage and adolescent girls and cheered them,” said a report by District Education officer (DEO) A Pushparaj.  

“All the male and female teachers were drunk when the hapless students were forced to perform for their entertainment,” said the report.

On Friday, the DEO suspended Headmaster R Venkata Reddy, teachers J Veera­swamy, Y Madhusudhan, Md Madeen Ahmed, S Praveen Kumar, Venkata Narasaiah and Venkateswarlu who conducted the trip.

On learning about the incident, the village panchayat leaders and the parents barged into the school, reprimanded them and manhandled some of them as well.

Police registered a case against the teachers on a complaint from the schoolgirls and parents. Headmaster Venkata Reddy was arrested and produced in court at Torruru.

Nellikuduru sub-inspector A Venkateswara Rao quoted the DEO as saying that he was not informed by the headmaster, nor was his permission sought before the children were taken on the trip.