Jharkhand teacher, clerk tied to tree, beaten by students over 'poor marks'

A mathematics teacher and a clerk of a residential school in Jharkhand's Dumka district were allegedly beaten by students after being tied to a tree for reportedly giving poor marks in Class 9 practical examination, police said on Tuesday.

The incident took place on Monday at a government-run Scheduled Tribe Residential School under Gopikandar police station area of the district.

As many as 11 students of the school out of 32 got Grade- DD (double D), which is considered equivalent to failing, in the Class 9 examination, results of which were declared by Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) on Saturday, the police said.

"No FIR has been lodged in the case, as school management did not give any written complaint about the incident. After verification of the incident, I asked the school authority to lodge a complaint but it refused saying that it might spoil the careers of the students," Gopikandar police station in-charge Nityanand Bhokta told PTI. The teacher was identified as Suman Kumar, while the clerk was Soneram Chaure, police said. They also did not give any written complaint to the police, Bhokta said.

Gopikandar block development officer (BDO) Anant Jha, who also went to the school with Bhokta for the investigation said, there are 200 students in the residential school and majority of them were involved in the incident.

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"The victim teacher was earlier headmaster of the school but later he was removed for reasons not known. It might be a case of rivalry among teachers. To maintain law and order of the school, classes for class-9 and class-10 have been suspended for two days and students were sent back to their homes," he said.

The students alleged that the teacher gave low marks to them in practical examinations, for which they failed in the exams. The clerk was allegedly responsible for uploading the marks online on JAC’s site.

"The school management, however, failed to show the marks of practical examinations and the date on which the marks were uploaded online. It is still not clear whether the students failed in the theory paper or practical. Prima facie it seems, the students took the action only on a rumour," he said.

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