SCARRED FOREVER: Mohammed Suhail Mansoor at a hospital ward in Bangalore on Wednesday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Bangalore: Although physical abuse of a child is banned under United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by many countries including India, corporal punishment is common in several prestigious schools.

In the most recent case, 15-year-old Mohammad Sohail Mansoor, a student at Sri Kumaran's Children's Home, CBSE Section, was allegedly slapped by the principal of the school on Tuesday, Children's Day.

According to the boy and his brother Mohammed Saud Mansoor, school principal Deepa Sridhar slapped him as 800 of his schoolmates stood witness. He apparently refused a part in a play, which was slated for the school's annual day. The boy was taken to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital after he fainted twice and complained of ringing in the ear and loss of balance while walking. The doctors there examined him and referred him to an ENT specialist. The case figures in the Medico Legal Case registration ledger (No. 92102) of the hospital and a case has been registered with the Subramanyapura police station. Investigations are now on.

The ENT specialist, who examined him, has said there is the "possibility of haematoma" in the head and advised observation. Saud calls this "a blatant case of child abuse".

However, there are two accounts of what transpired on the day. While Sohail said he received four blows to his head, Ms. Sridhar said she merely "patted him with the good intentions of instilling good manners". He said that Ms. Sridhar made religious insinuations against him for refusing to play a mythological role. But he said that he was unable to attend the annual day as he had only recently lost his grandfather. "My intention was not to give the incident a religious flavour," Ms Sridhar told The Hindu . Sohail behaved "insolently", she said and she was merely doing her "duty as an educator, in disciplining my student."

Second incident

This incident, yet again, brings into focus a form of child abuse in education that was not viewed by educators, parents, and policymakers with the seriousness that it merits. It was only a week ago that the incident of a boy being hit on the head with a duster was reported from St. John's School.

Niranjan Aradhya, Senior Research Officer, Centre for Child and the Law of the National Law School of India University, said that physical abuse of a child was not banned under the Karnataka Right to Education Act (1983) and there was a need to do so now. "But more than the law, it should be part of commonsense," said Dr. Aradhya. "It should be the minimum norm in all schools." He said that a government circular of December 3, 2002, instructed that physical education teachers should ensure that children were not physically abused in schools.

Reacting to the incident, the former Education Minister B.K. Chandrashekhar said he was "absolutely revolted" by it, more so if it was true that it was perpetrated by the principal. He said corporal punishment in Indian schools was a "throw-back to Victorian notions."

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