Student files torture case against principal

A class IX student of Maria High School in Rajshahi’s Durgapur upazila has filed a case against his headmaster saying that the man tortured him. The plaintiff filed a general diary (GD) at Durgapur Thana on Monday. According to the diary victim Nayeem Islam, son of Durgapur upazila’s Jaikrishnapur village resident Shahjahan Ali, received a transfer certificate (TC) from his school. However, Nayeem refused to accept the TC and wanted to continue studying at same school. On Monday, he went to visit Headmaster Mollah Hasan Imam Faruq alias Sumon about the matter, where he was asked why he had come to school disobeying his transfer certificate. Soon after, an altercation ensued and the headmaster started hitting him on his back and left arm with a cane. This quickly escalated to punches to the student’s chest that floored him, and the teacher subsequently closed the door and kept kicking him. After a while, the school’s Office Assistant and peons joined in the beating. Upon receiving this news, Nayeem’s family members rushed to the spot and rescued the boy with the help of students, following which he was admitted to the upazila health centre. Rifat Hasan, leader of the school student cabinet said: “Headmaster Sumon is the General Secretary of the upazila for BNP as well as the Union Parishad chairman for Maria, and uses his influence to keep the school under his power. He has expelled many students for little or no reason, and even gotten two of them implicated in a false case. He also prevented a student from attending his SSC exam last year. “The headmaster fined a schoolteacher Tk15,000 over an affair he had, and kept the money for himself. This was supposed to be a secret matter, but the headmaster thought Nayeem Islam had exposed it, leading to his TC. However, when Nayeem refused to leave the school, he was assaulted and tortured,” he added. Durgapur OC Ruhul Alam said: “The UNO has set up a probe committee to investigate this matter. The case has not been accepted yet, and awaits the results of the investigation.” Academic Supervisor of Durgapur upazila’s Intermediate Education Office Rahedul Islam confirmed the allegation, saying: “The Intermediate Education Official is in Dhaka. When he returns, we will take the necessary actions.” When asked about the allegation, Headmaster Mollah Hasan Imam Faruq alias Sumon said: “I just slapped him a couple of times because he was threatening schoolteachers with violence. A mountain of complaints has piled up against him from students and teachers alike over the last seven or eight months, and we the teachers have taken a unanimous decision to expel him.”