Bhubaneswar, Sept. 10: The Orissa government has ordered a high-level probe into the alleged corporal punishment meted out to a Class X student of a premier government school in the city.

State school and mass education minister Pratap Jena today said that a high-level inquiry would be conducted to find out whether the student, who had committed suicide on Thursday night, had been given corporal punishment at school, as has been alleged by his family members.

The Class X student of Capital High School, Unit-III, was missing from Thursday, when he had last gone to school, and his body was found on the railway track under the Satyanagar overbridge on Friday morning.

Family members of 14-year-old Pratap Keshari Jena had alleged that corporal punishment in his school had forced him to commit suicide. Kedarnath Samal, who had adopted Pratap, alleged that the boy had been beaten up by one of his teachers for wearing a flashy bracelet and talking to his classmates while a class was in progress.

Later, the relatives of the deceased and local residents protested in front of the school demanding an inquiry into the circumstances that forced the boy to commit suicide and action against the guilty teachers. They alleged that teacher Umakant Barik and Pratap’s class teacher Geetanjali Mohanty had subjected the boy to corporal punishment.

The minister said today that a high-level officer would be entrusted with the inquiry. “The probe will start from Monday,” said Jena, adding that action would be taken against the teachers if they were found guilty.

The headmistress of the school, Bandana Mohapatra, had rubbished the charges of corporal punishment and had said that the teachers had been strictly instructed to report to the parents of the unruly students instead of beating them up in class.

Mohapatra told The Telegraph today that after receipt of a written complaint from the family members of the deceased student, she had informed the higher authorities. “I even conducted a preliminary inquiry and found the allegation to be untrue. After being informed by the other teacher about the boy’s behaviour, the class teacher had called up his father instead of beating him,” said the headmistress.

The deputy commissioner of police, Nitinjeet Singh, said that the police had received the complaint. “As the incident was reported to the Government Railway Police, which is investigating the matter, we will forward it to them,” said Singh.

However, GRP inspector-in-charge S.R. Kar said that he had not received any complaint regarding corporal punishment in the deceased’s school which forced him to commit suicide.

“If any complaint is lodged here we will act accordingly,” said Kar.