Corporal Punishment Moves To The Tuition Center

Sulbha Fulzar , a tuition teacher from Gomtipur , Ahmedabad has been charged with inflicting bodily harm on her students.

Fulzar branded three of her students with a pair of hot iron tongs on Thursday. The reason – failing to produce their Diwali homework.

Fulzar’s brutality became public when one of her students , 11-year old Kunal Verma returned home , bearing burn marks near his ears. According to the boy, his teacher, who was in the midst of her cooking , asked for the homework she had assigned them during the Diwali vacations. Finding that few had done it, she threatened the students with hot cooking vessels . Not getting a reaction she desired , she proceeded then to heat a pair of tongs and branded Kunal.

Livid with rage at the incident, Kunal’s uncle, Gautam, rushed to Fulzar’s home to seek an explanation. Not satisfied with her response, he then filed a case at Gomtipur police station.

The complaint reads that Kartik, 7, and Sarawsati, 9, were also branded with the hot tongs. These children live in Dhula Patel ni chali, while Fulzar lives nearby. Fulzar gives tuition lessons for students in classes 1 to 7.

However the teacher is unrepentant. “The parents told me to punish their children if they lacked discipline. But today’s children just can’t be controlled with a mere scolding or even slaps. When the matter went out of my hands today, I tried to threaten them with hot tongs and it accidentally touched three of the students,” she says defiantly.

She also boasted that the students who had been coming to her for the last three years were doing well in exams. “Kunal’s mother actually tried to stop her brother, but he rushed to the police station and registered a complaint against me. But I am sure I will be out soon,” Fulzar who has now been arrested, says.

According to various sources, Sulbha Fulzar had made a habit of ‘torturing’ children on the pretext of disciplining them. “My son Rahul, a class five student, was beaten with a wooden ruler on Wednesday and ended up with marks. Punishing children is fine, but her methods were exaggerated,” Arvind Rathod, a parent spoke up.

“We came to know of at least 12 instances when Fulzar had tortured children. But most of the parents are afraid of lodging complaints with the police. This morning too, we had to convince them that an FIR is important in such cases,” rues PS Parmar, inspector of Gomtipur police station.

One boy was marked near the ears, another on the cheeks and a girl was branded on her wrists. “Such offences cannot be taken lightly. We are trying to find out more such cases against Fulzar,” Parmar added.

Source-Medindia
ANN/P