BERHAMPUR: Police on Tuesday detained the headmaster and an attendant of the Helen Keller Red Cross (HKRC) School for the Deaf at Ambapua for allegedly assaulting a 15-year-old specially-abled student.
The victim is a Class VIII student of the school. He along with other students was residing in a private mess near the school where the alleged assault took place.
On November 20, the student tried to throw away the cooked food served to him. Attendant Girishraj Rout, who manages the mess, reportedly thrashed the boy mercilessly with a broom and forced him to eat the food.
Some senior students recorded the incident on a mobile phone and uploaded the video on YouTube. Later, the video went viral, drawing the attention of the Chief Minister’s Office. The CMO alerted the department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, which in turn instructed the Ganjam administration to initiate action.
Subsequently, the Ganjam collector directed the Berhampur sub-collector to conduct an inquiry. On November 22, the district social security officer visited the mess and confirmed the incident.
On Monday, in-charge sub-divisional social security officer Swabhiman Sahu took the victim student to Gopalpur police station and lodged a complaint against Rout and the school headmaster Bauribandhu Nayak.
The FIR stated that headmaster Nayak had failed to inform the district administration including the Berhampur sub-collector, who serves as the school’s secretary, about the students’ accommodation in a private mess.
Gopalpur IIC Prashant Kumar Mallick said basing on the complaint, police have registered a case and further investigation is underway.
Notably, the HKRC School is run with grant-in-aid from the department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and managed by the Ganjam district Red Cross.
Several HKRC students stay in the private mess which operated from a rented house in nearby Mahimanagar. Following requests from parents, the responsibility of supervising them was informally entrusted to Rout, an attendant of the school appointed on ad-hoc basis.
