Notice To UP School Over Scaring Children With “Electric Chair” Threats

Uttar Pradesh Education department has sent a show cause notice to the management of a private school in Aligarh district for allegedly intimidating children with threats of “electric chair” and also failure to renew its permit to conduct classes.

Basic Education Officer Rakesh Kumar Singh said that he had received a complaint from the parent of student who alleged that his child was tortured and “made to sit on an electric chair” as part of punishment.

“A parent of a child complained that their child was made to sit on a chair and was threatened. … This incident was found to be false. We saw the CCTV, the child was sitting and nothing like that was done to him,” the Basic Education official told ANI.

The official said, however, CCTV footage had shown another student being beaten up.

He also said that during an investigation it was discovered that the school had failed to renew its permit to conduct classes from 8.

“But in front of that child, another child from class 4 was being beaten up by the coordinator of the school named Dipti. The school does not have the permission to run classes from 1 to 8. They had permission but it expired in 2021. A showcause notice has been issued for the same. I have written to the school administration to terminate the services of the school coordinator,” the official said.

Singh said that in his investigation, he did not find any electric chairs in the school. But he said that staff at the school used to intimidate children about using using electric chairs as punishment for errant children

“Such threats to scare children is punishable offence under the Right to Education,” he said.