Female teacher held for beating up four-year-old girl in Surat school

NEW DELHI: A female teacher of a private school was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly beating up a four-year-old girl studying in the pre-primary section of the institute in Gujarat's Surat city, said police.

The teacher, Jashodaben Khokharia, was arrested and charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and also relevant sections of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Vipul Patel.

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"Based on a complaint given by the girl's parents, we have arrested the teacher Jashodaben," said Patel. The issue came to light when the parents of the girl, studying in the pre-primary section of a private school, shared CCTV footage with the media showing Khokharia repeatedly hitting their daughter on her back and slapping her for some reason during class on Monday. In the CCTV footage of the classroom, Khokharia can be seen sitting near the child and slapping her on her back and on face for nearly 30 times.

When TV channels highlighted the issue, Gujarat Minister of State for Education Praful Pansheriya condemned the ill-treatment of the child and asked the District Education Officer to conduct an inquiry into the incident.

The girl's parents told reporters their daughter did not inform them about the teacher's brutality and they learnt about it on seeing swelling marks on her body after she came back from the school on Monday.

"We visited the school on Tuesday and asked the principal to show us CCTV footage of her classroom. The footage clearly shows how mercilessly my daughter was thrashed by the teacher in front of other students. We want authorities to give us justice," an angry father of the girl said.