Indian girl stripped in class

Published October 1, 2007

NEW DELHI, Sept 30: A seven-year-old girl was made to strip naked by her teacher in a New Delhi school for not completing her homework, a police spokesman said on Sunday.

The minor was made to strip completely naked and stand on a desk in her class on Friday while other students were asked to boo her, the officer said.

“The teacher was arrested on a complaint by the parents but she has been released as it was a bailable offence,” Rajan Bhagat told Reuters over the telephone.

“This is barbaric,” Shanta Sinha, head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said in a newspaper report. “No one has the right to outrage the modesty of a child.”

The commission had issued a directive this year barring schools from calling students “stupid” or “mindless”.

Although banned, corporal punishment is widely used to discipline children in Indian schools.—Reuters