Iftesham’s body at the morgue. (Sanat Kumar Sinha)

Calcutta, Nov. 29: The teacher whose slap allegedly claimed the life of a schoolgirl yesterday has been charged with death due to negligence — a bailable offence.

Eight-year-old Iftesham Chowdhury died a day after yoga teacher Anita Das slapped to discipline her in class.

The Class II girl’s head banged against a wall when Anita hit her. She went into a coma soon after and died at Calcutta Medical Research Institute (CMRI) last night.

The police, who registered the case of death due to negligence, are yet to arrest Anita. “The teacher is absconding. We are trying to track her down,” said Anand Kumar, the deputy commissioner of police, port division.

Chowdhury Mansur Rehman, the girl’s father, is upset that the teacher was not charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder — a non-bailable offence.

Mansur, Party for Democratic Socialism leader Saifuddin Chowdhury’s brother, also said that no one from the school, Vidya Bharati in Mominpur, came to visit him after his the girl’s death. Neither did anyone go to see her at CMRI, where doctors found a clot in her brain. The clot was removed, but Iftesham never recovered from the coma.

“The indifference of the school authorities is inexplicable. It shows that they don’t care for their students,” Mansur said at the Kantapukur morgue. “They did not even call me, let alone sending a wreath.”

Principal Anjana Mullick, however, said she had sent some members of the staff to meet Mansur. She said the incident was “unfortunate and regrettable”, but not “deliberate”.

Anjana said: “What (Anita) Das did was definitely wrong as corporal punishment is banned. I shall recommend to the managing committee that she be dismissed from service.”

The school has decided to hold a memorial service for Iftesham on Monday.

The girl’s body was taken to the ancestral home of the Chowdhurys in Burdwan where it will be buried.