Katihar, March 9: A 10-year-old student’s sprint to skip spanking in school today allegedly led to his death. The incident occurred at Kamipur Parta village under Pranpur police station of Katihar district, around 300km from Patna.

The 10-year-old boy, Pintu Mandal, started running from Utkramit Madhya Vidyalaya anticipating his teacher, Indrajeet Bharti, would thrash him. After reaching home, he complained of acute pain in his ears. He died on the way to hospital.

A case under Section 304 of Indian Penal Code (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) has been registered against the teacher on the basis of the statement of Pintu’s father, Subhash Chandra Mandal. Indrajeet has been taken into custody.

A number of villagers gathered on the school premises after coming to know about the incident. No one from the crowd manhandled the teachers, though.

Police rushed to the school after the crowd gathered and took the accused teacher in custody.

Subhash said as the teacher chased his son for thrashing, Pintu ran away from the school. After reaching home he complained of acute pain in his ears.

“Pintu then started to vomit. When we took him to the hospital, the doctors told us Pintu was dead,” he said.

Katihar superintendent of police (SP) Sujit Kumar said the case was being investigated and it was too early to jump to any conclusion.

“The post-mortem report will help in further investigation,” he said.

The residents of the area said the accused teacher as well as others working in the school were habitual offenders and thrashed the students regularly.

“The teachers beat up students every now and then. But we never thought the incident would take such a tragic turn,” said Krityanand Yadav, the village head of Barjhara Panchayat under which the school falls.

Katihar district magistrate (DM) Ashwini D. Thakre directed the sub-divisional officer (SDO) to furnish a detailed report of the incident to her.

“I am waiting for the SDO’s report as well as the postmortem report. Appropriate action will be taken in case the teacher is found guilty,” she said.

The DM, however, ruled out the possibility of conducting surprise checks in schools to find out if teachers physically assaulted students.

“There are standing orders against beating up students. Whenever such cases come to our knowledge, we take serious action against those found guilty,” the DM said.