Teacher beats up two students in Ctg despite ban

The bruises on Aznain Ishtiak Shubho and Abu Bakkar Ridwan, class X students of Government Muslim High School in Chittagong city, allegedly inflicted by the school's Assistant Headmistress-in-Charge Jebunnessa Begum on Tuesday. The photo was taken yesterday.Photo: STAR

About a hundred students of Government Muslim High School in Chittagong city demonstrated yesterday, as a teacher beat up two students a day ago despite a ban on corporal punishment in educational institutions.
The protesters blocked the road in front of the school for about half an hour and returned to classes after an education board officer assured them of transferring the teacher to another school and of proper steps against her.
Jebunnessa Begum, assistant headmistress-in-charge at the school, allegedly beat up Aznain Ishtiak Shubho and Abu Bakkar Ridwan, both of them class X students, for carrying a mobile phone to the classroom. She punched them and clobbered them with a wooden ruler, causing bruises and cuts on their arms.
According to the victims, Ridwan did not come to school on Tuesday and phoned Shubho that he was "injured in an accident". One of Shubho's classmates told Jebunnessa that Shubho carried a mobile phone, they said.
Shubho said the teacher came to the classroom and beat him up when she learned of the mobile phone.
Ridwan allegedly told Shubho of the accident to avoid classes.
At one stage, Jebunnessa called Ridwan and later his and Shubho's parents to the school.
Md Babul, father of Shubho, said, "When I reached the school I found the teacher pulling Shubho's hair and beating him with a ruler. She left Shubho when I told her that I was his father, and then she started beating up Ridwan."
Jebunnessa denied the allegations and said the whole story was fabricated. “I never touched Shubho and hit Ridwan twice in the leg." About the bruises on their bodies, she said, “Their parents beat them up to put me in trouble.”
Aziz Uddin, deputy director of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, Chittagong, told The Daily Star, “Initially the teacher will be transferred elsewhere. If we get a written complaint from the victims, then departmental actions will be taken based on an investigation report.”
The government banned all corporal punishment in all educations institutions across the country in 2010.