NHRC seeks report on abused Navodaya students

They have been branded 'Naxals' and beaten by chappals by their teachers

Students of a Navodaya school in Maoist-affected Dantewada have been branded as Naxals and beaten with chappals allegedly by teachers before they were rusticated for ten days.

The reports about such acts at the Kendriya Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Barsoor, in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada region, have prompted the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to issue a notice to the District Magistrate seeking a report within three weeks.

The action came after the Commission took suo motu cognizance of a media report that some teachers beat Class X students with their sandals and described them as Naxals. The students were also rusticated for ten days, an NHRC statement said.

The Commission said the allegations, if true , raise “serious issue of human rights violation of the students”.

The teachers' action allegedly came after some quarrel between two groups of students.
The incident happened in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, which was established in 1993 and is accredited by CBSE.

The school is located 400 kms from the state capital of Raipur.

In another statement, the NHRC also issued a notice to a Kanker district magistrate following reports that women had to sleep on the floor after their operations for sterilisation at a camp organised at Dhaneli Kanhar.

“Some beds were arranged by the concerned authorities only when the media persons reached the spot.

“Reportedly, the women who came for sterilisation also had to wait for hours due to the late arrival of doctors,” the NHRC statement said.

The District magistrate has been asked to submit a report within two weeks.