HARIPUR: A school principal and a female teacher were arrested and sent to jail for allegedly subjecting a girl student to corporal punishment, police said on Sunday.

Both the accused were on pre-arrest bail from a local court since the registration of case.

Khalabat Township police quoted Waheed Khan, a resident of Sector No 4 in Khalabat Township, as saying that his daughter, Bushra Khan, student of 10th grade at Iqra Public School, was severely beaten up by school principal, Abid Khan and female teacher, Aniqa Bibi on Oct 16, 2018, over unknown reasons. He said she had lost her senses and started behaving like a mentally unsound person.

The complainant told the police that when she was taken to a private doctor who referred her to psychiatry ward of Ayub Medical Complex, Abbottabad, where she remained admitted for several days. He accused the principal and the female teacher of hitting his daughter in the head which resulted in her developing psychological complications. On his complaint, the police had on Oct 28 registered a case against the school head and the female teacher under section 13/34 of the Child Welfare Protection Act, 2010.

The accused had, however, obtained bail before arrest from the local court which was cancelled by additional sessions judge-II on Saturday, leading to arrest of both the accused from the courtroom.

The female teacher was sent to Haripur jail the same day, while the police produced the principal before the judicial magistrate for obtaining his physical remand, but the court declined to grant the same, and sent him on judicial remand on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the school principal denied that he or any of the teachers of school had ever subjected the girl to corporal punishment. He claimed that the girl was already a psycho patient and was undergoing treatment.

ELECTROCUTED: A Pesco lineman was electrocuted in Hattar village, police said on Sunday.

Police quoted Pesco officials as saying that lineman Akhtar Nawaz was fixing a fault on a low tension line of a petrol pump near Kutli Nehr area of Hattar when the electricity supply got restored from the grid station.

The official fell off the pole after suffering electric shock and suffered head injury which proved fatal. He was removed to hospital but doctors pronounced him dead.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2019