Patna, May 2: A Class XI student of Army School, Danapur, today alleged that he was beaten up by the school principal and some teachers because of some confusion in a class. The cause of the confusion was the late arrival of a teacher.

Praveen Kumar, a commerce student, has written a letter to the sub-divisional officer (SDO), Danapur, the human resource development department and district education officer (DEO), demanding justice.

The letter, a copy of which is with The Telegraph, states that the incident took place at 10.30am on April 28. The boy’s father, L.P. Yadav, is an army jawan.

“We were in the class when Dhamsheela Pandey, the school principal, came there and took another student and me to the mathematics class. Once there, I was slapped hard and repeatedly on the left side of my face. My left ear was swollen as a result and started to ring because of the immense pain. I requested the principal not to beat me up but she did not listen to my request. Since then, I have a very severe headache and I am not able to hear properly,” the letter read.

Explaining what happened that day, Praveen’s friend told The Telegraph that the boy had taken mathematics as a subject.

“Praveen is in the commerce stream and one of the subjects he has is mathematics. For that, we have to go to the science class, where the subject is taught. Praveen went to the class in the morning and sat there for sometime. When the teacher did not come for the class, Praveen, returned to his own class and started to study,” the student told The Telegraph.

“After sometime, the school principal came down to the class and asked Praveen to go to the mathematics class. There, he was beaten up,” added the student.

The letter added that after returning home on that day, Praveen started vomiting and fainted as well.

“I asked for help from a fellow classmate who took me immediately to the Danapur government hospital for treatment. In the hospital, I was treated by the medical officer on duty who referred me to an ENT specialist. I am still on treatment,” the letter said.

Praveen added that he comes from a poor family and is studying despite great financial difficulty.

He said the entire family was scared of the principal and the teachers of the school adding that harassment and beating up students was a common affair there. He said that the school management knew about it but never took any action.

The principal, however, refuted the allegations.

“This is a baseless allegation. We have not received any letter from the student in this regard. The school is CBSE affiliated and the teachers know how to manage and behave with the students. But then if there is such a letter, the matter will be looked into,” Pandey said.

B. Kartikay, SDO, Danapur, said he, too, did not know about the letter.

“We have been busy with the elections for days now and I have not been able to check the letters coming in. But then we have heard about this incident. If the letter has been sent, the matter will be investigated. The police will also be involved,” said Kartikay.

DEO Kiran Kumari told The Telegraph that she would check if the letter had arrived.

“If it has been sent via post, it will take sometime. We can always investigate the incident. The Bihar Child Rights Protection Commission will be given the charge of investing it. There cannot be any form of corporal punishment. The commission had investigated a similar incident earlier and the teacher responsible was rusticated,” she said.