Ankush Chakraborty, with a swollen nose. Picture by Krishna Chandra Mishra

Chinsurah, May 8: A teacher kept banging the head of a Class I student against the desk until he started bleeding from the nose yesterday.

Environmental science teacher Kakali Chatterjee hauled up Ankush Chakraborty as he could not answer questions in class after a three-day absence because of fever.

“When I failed to answer her questions, she came near me, grabbed my hair and hit my head repeatedly on the desk. I kept telling her it was hurting me but she did not listen to me. Soon, blood was coming out of my nose,” the boy said.

The teacher of the CBSE-affiliated Knowledge Campus then took Ankush to the principal’s office and put ice on his wound.

When mother Nabanita came to pick Ankush up at 2 pm, he was crying. The swollen nose bore telltale marks of something having gone awry.

She rushed to principal K.C. Joseph, who claimed that the boy got hurt while playing with his mates.

Partha Chakraborty, a medical representative, took his son to the Chinsurah Imambara Hospital later and then to the local police station to lodge an FIR.

“Officers there refused to register an FIR saying only a general diary could be accepted,” Chakraborty said.

Representatives of the Guardians’ Forum blocked the school gates today, demanding a meeting with the principal. But he refused.

The classes, however, started as usual at 7 am.

The managing director of the Techo India Group, which runs the school, rushed from Calcutta at noon and admitted after a series of meetings that the teacher had indeed hit the boy, though not with the intention to hurt him.

“It is unfortunate that such an incident has happened in our school. I have spoken to the teacher concerned and have come to know that it wasn’t her intention to hurt the child,” Manashi Roy Choudhuri said. The teacher, she promised, would also meet the boy’s parents and apologise.

Principal Joseph handed in his resignation minutes after the announcement and the guardians called off their agitation.

The inspector in charge of the Chinsurah police station said the general diary lodged against the teacher would not be pursued as the “matter has been settled” amicably.

The school has about 800 students, from upper kindergarten to Class VIII.