Tamil Nadu police are on the lookout for the headmistress of a government school in Tamil Nadu's Erode district for allegedly forcing six children from scheduled castes to clean a school toilet.
According to a complaint filed by Jayanthi, the mother of a class five student, the "HM Ms Geetha Rani singled out only SC children to clean the toilet".
The violation, the mother says, came to light after her son had contracted dengue and was hospitalised recently. "When I asked him how he got dengue, my son said he was bitten by mosquitos when he handled bleaching powder and cleaned the toilet daily", she said.
"Last week, a parent saw them coming out of the toilet with sticks and mugs. When asked, they said they cleaned the toilet, and that the headmistress asked them to do it. 40 children study in that class, and most of them are our scheduled castes children. She has asked only our children to do this," she added.
Police have registered a case under the Juvenile Justice Act, besides invoking the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
A police officer told NDTV, "The head mistress of the panchayat union school at Palakarai is absconding. We have formed special teams to arrest her. Investigation is on". The headmistress could not be reached for her response.
A video, that NDTV can't independently verify, shows at least three boys claiming to be from the same school alleging they were asked by the headmistress to clean the toilet.
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