Thirteen-year-old Miraz has not been able to say a single word for the last 11 days since his schoolteacher caned him.
He does not answer any question or respond to anything; he just stares vacantly; he bursts into a hysterical cry by the mere mention of the name of his teacher – Lob Chandra Das.
The teacher of Kalidaha High School at Kalidaha union of Feni beat up Miraz on July 10 because the boy had scuffled with a girl student of his class.
As the boy was traumatised by the beating his parents got him admitted to the Psychiatric Department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in the capital.
He has not eaten anything nor spoken to anyone since he came to the hospital.
Narrating the incident, his mother Layla Begum Shila said like the other days Miraz had gone for private tuition at Lob Chandra’s residence and from there to school. He came back home around 2:30pm but was looking depressed.
“I sat him to lunch but he was not eating. He kept sitting and staring at the window near the dining table,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
The mother asked repeatedly what had happened to him but Miraz did not answer. He just kept on crying silently. Then she inquired a classmate of her son.
“Miraz’s classmate Ranu said Lob Chandra caned Miraz after confining him to an empty room because he had locked into a scuffle with a classmate over calling each other names,” Layla said.
Miraz clutched at his teacher’s legs, pleading for mercy, but nothing could soften the teacher’s heart, his classmate told Layla.
The mother found injury marks all over her son’s body. “My poor boy cannot move his left hand because of the beating,” she said.
For the next three days Miraz neither ate nor went for a swim nor went to play cricket in the school field. He even seemed scared of the sight of his classmates who had come to visit him.
He lay awake all night and screamed now and then: “Forgive me, sir! Do not beat me!”
Hearing the incident Miraz’s father Monsur, who is a worker at an engineering workshop at Chairman Bari, Banani, rushed home. They took the boy to upazila hospital where doctors referred him to the BSMMU. Miraz was admitted to the hospital on July 14.
SM Atikur Rahman, a doctor of the BSMMU psychiatric department, said Miraz had been suffering from conversion disorder, a psychological malady.
“Usually, a child suffers from this disorder if they are tortured mentally and physically. We call the illness ‘aphasia’. Stopping to talk is one of the symptoms of this kind of neurological disorder,” he said.
“We do not know how many days the boy will take to recover. We hope he will be back to his normal life soon. But we think it will take some more time before he can attend school again,” he said.
When contacted, the school’s Headmaster Ruhul Amin said three students had been “slightly” beaten up that day for teasing a girl.
“But the punishment was not so severe. I talked to several teachers and students and they also said so. After Miraz recovers, we will take his version,” he said.
He claimed that the boy had already been mentally ill and his present condition had no relation with the corporal punishment.
“We will ensure punishment of the teacher concerned if the allegations are found true after investigation,” the headmaster further said.
