6-yr-old collapses, dies after being beaten by teacher in Andhra school

six-year-old child collapsed and died inside the classroom of a private school in Visakhapatnam, moments after being slapped and reprimanded by a teacher for not completing his homework.

The entire incident, which reportedly happened in Little Garden School, a private institution in the One Town area of Visakhapatnam, on Thursday (August 20) has been caught on CCTV footage, which is going viral. The family of the child, Pranay Teja, has alleged that he was intimidated by the teacher and beaten with a stick and died of shock and fear.

Viral video

The video shows the boy holding a slate and waiting in a queue in front of the teacher. He looks already scared when the teacher pulls him and starts adjusting his uniform. Even as he pleads with the teacher not to hit him, she slaps him. Seconds later, the boy collapses head-on onto the teacher.

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Reports said the child, Pranay Teja, was taken to King George Hospital (KGH) where doctors declared him dead.

Police, who are probing the circumstances that led to the death, said the exact medical cause can only be ascertained after post-mortem.

‘Insisted on going to school’, says father

Pranay’s shocked and grief-stricken family have demanded strict action against the teacher.

His father told NDTV that he left home on Thursday morning in good health and had in fact insisted on going to school that day.

He said it was around noon that he received a call informing him that something had happened to his child. Pranay’s father said the call didn’t directly come from the school, but from local cooks who work near his brother-in-law’s place.

‘Died due to shock and fear’

He said the family demanded the school to release the CCTV footage of Pranay’s classroom and on scanning through it found that he was scared and beaten with a stick by the teacher.

“When we checked the CCTV footage at the school, it showed that the teacher scared him. She hit him with a stick, and due to shock and fear, he collapsed right there,” his father told NDTV.

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He said the doctor at the hospital told the family that the child had died half an hour before being brought to the hospital.

Asked if the child was already unwell, the father replied in the negative and said he was playing the night before the incident happily and woke up fine in the morning.

The family alleged that Pranay’s case was not an isolated incident and that other children were also subjected to corporal punishment in the school.

Panel formed to probe incident

Terming the incident “extremely unfortunate and painful,” the school education department said concerned department officials conducted an immediate inquiry after the incident and submitted a preliminary report. Based on that, a three-man committee has been formed to probe the incident.

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A case has been filed, and the body has been sent for post-mortem.