SUKKUR: Sindh Minister for Education Syed Sardar Ali Shah has taken notice of the death of a ninth grade student allegedly due to severe torture at the hands of a teacher at a private school in Kandhkot on Saturday.

The minster has also directed regional education authority to investigate the incident and take action accordingly, after which regional deputy director of private schools cancelled registration of the private school and formed a six-member committee to investigate the matter.

Family sources said that Satish Kumar, son of Dharampal, was allegedly subjected to severe beating by his teacher, Zulifqar Channa, in the classroom. The boy was so terrified and shocked at the humiliation that he could not take it anymore and died, said sources.

The boy’s relatives and sympathisers took the body to a hospital where doctors confirmed his death but found no sign of torture on the body.

The teacher and the school’s principal were arrested late in the night after local Hindu Panchayat lodged a case against them at the A-Section police station.

On Sunday, members of the Hindu community brought the body to the Kandhkot Press Club and staged a demonstration. They told media persons that police had taken the teacher and the principal into custody under mounting pressure from the community and their sympathisers but they had not yet shown their arrests in official record.

The victim’s father and other family members said the school administration had killed the innocent boy. They rejected the education department’s committee and demanded a judicial inquiry into the death.

They demanded that police throw the culprit behind the bars so that no other family had to face such a tragedy again.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2022