The headmaster of a primary school in Gopalganj suffered a heart attack after allegedly being threatened with job termination by a primary education officer on Sunday.
Montu Lal Hajra, acting headmaster in Nolua Government Primary School in the district’s Kotalipara upazila, was rushed to Gopalganj General Hospital in critical condition.
“The upazila education officer, Kazi Shahidul Islam, was angered because one of the recently selected teachers’ representatives in the school was a junior female teacher,” Montu Lal said while talking to the Dhaka Tribune at the hospital.
“He asked for me to see him in his office on Sunday afternoon, where he verbally abused me and threatened to fire me.
When I begged for his forgiveness, he said he would fling me from the second floor of the office building.
At one point, I fell ill and was given treatment at a local facility. When my condition deteriorated, I was taken to Gopalganj General Hospital on Monday afternoon,” he said.
Dr Prashanta Kumar Sharnakar, consultant at the cardiology department at Gopalganj General, said Montu had indeed suffered from a heart attack.
“He was in critical condition when he was brought in, but is improving now,” he said.
However, when contacted, the education officer denied all allegations against him. “I do not favour any candidate in the school’s management committee election.
Montu was supposed to give me details of a fully formed management committee of the school, which he failed to do.
I inquired about it when he came to my office on Sunday, and he got nervous and fell ill. There was no misconduct on my part,” he said.
Teachers, parents and students of the school, as well as local people, expressed outrage and demanded exemplary punishment for Shahidul.
“We will observe class abstention for an indefinite period if the accused does not get appropriate punishment,” said several students at the school.
