Antarul Sheikh at the Krishnagar hospital on Tuesday evening. Picture by Amit Biswas

Krishnagar, April 1: A Class X boy had his teeth knocked out by his classmates in Nadia today because he had protested when they teased girls.

Six boys pounced on Antarul Sheikh, 16, as he walked out of Plassey Sugar Mill High School after the Madhyamik work education test.

They beat him and threw stones at his face for about 20 minutes. His shirt splattered with blood and three front teeth missing, Antarul lost consciousness after some time.

“They threw stones at my face and kicked and punched me until I lost conscious- ness on the village road. I heard them hurling abuses at me. They spat on my face,” Antarul spoke in a barely audible mumble from his bed at the Shaktinagar district hospital this evening.

He recognised two of the assailants as his classmates but not the rest as they overpowered him in no time.

The duo Antarul knew had threatened him when he protested against their teasing girls at a coaching class.

Antarul’s father Atar Sheikh lodged a police complaint at Plassey, about 150km from Calcutta, tonight identifying two of the attackers.

“Antarul has seen all those who hit him. But he could only recognise two,” said Atar, a farmer.

Raktim Chatterjee, the officer in charge of Kaligunj police station, said an investigation had begun.

One of the three Plassey Girls’ High School students for whom Antarul had stood up came to see him in hospital.

She said: “They pulled our hands on the road and passed lewd comments. Antarul had protested vehemently but they did not care.”

Antarul said the boys, most of whom joined the class only months before the exam, “always teased the girls”, before and after class. “The girls protested, but in vain.”

Last week, Antarul slapped one of the boys at a get-together of the students at the coaching class. “I also asked them not to come anywhere near the girls,” he said. “The boys threatened revenge.”

His uncle Asraf Ali said some villagers told him around 3pm that Antarul was lying unconscious near his school.

“When we reached there, I found him in a pool of blood. We took him to the block hospital from where he was referred to the district hospital in Krishnagar.”

Antarul’s upper lip needed four stitches. “He also lost three front teeth,” a doctor at the district hospital said.

Headmaster Soumya Mitra said Antarul had told him that some of his classmates had threatened him. “I had assured him that he was protected inside the school. But the attack took place outside.”

Mitra, however, promised “action against the boys involved”.