The principal and a teacher of a residential school in Karnataka's Kolar have been arrested and four contractual staff sacked after visuals from the campus showed Dalit students cleaning a safety tank. In another video showing corporal punishment at the school, students were seen kneeling with heavy schoolbags on their backs at night.
The shocking visuals are from Morarji Desai residential school in Kolar. The school has 243 students, including 19 girls, from Classes 6 to 9.
It is alleged that at least four students were made to climb down a septic tank and clean it with their hands as a punishment.
Manual scavenging was banned in India about three decades back, but the practice continues, resulting in several deaths every year, primarily due to suffocation. In the Karnataka case, getting children to clean a septic tank as a form of punishment not only endangers their life, but exposes them to trauma they will grow up with.
In another video, the students are seen kneeling with their bags on their backs and their hands raised. One boy is seen gasping for breath as his friends try to help him drink water.
The shocking visuals sparked outrage, prompting Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to intervene. Principal Bharatamma and teacher Muniyappa have been arrested. They have also been suspended from work on grounds of negligence and dereliction of duty.
According to the state-run Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society, social welfare department officials had personally found that teachers of the school beat students up.
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