PABNA — A ninth-grade student at a school in Atgharia upazila of Pabna died after drinking poison following a beating by her teacher, her family alleged.
Students from Shaheed Abdul Khalek High School held a protest march and human chain Monday demanding justice against the accused teacher. The march circled the main road of Khidirpur Bazar and ended at the school’s main gate, where students burned tires and demanded the teacher’s resignation.
The deceased, Jasmine, was the daughter of Jahangir Hossain of Hatigara village in Majpara union of the upazila. She was a ninth-grade student at Shaheed Abdul Khalek High School in Khidirpur.
According to the complaint, Jasmine brought a button mobile phone to class on Nov. 2. Class teacher Minoyara Khatun, after seeing the phone with the student, allegedly abused her in vulgar language and humiliated her in the classroom. Later, part-time teacher Salma Khatun called Jasmine out of the classroom, took her to a separate room, closed the door and beat her indiscriminately with a stick, injuring her in multiple places. They then humiliated her and forced her out of the school.
Unable to endure the beating and humiliation, Jasmine drank poison at her grandmother’s house on the afternoon of the incident and fell ill. After her family learned of the matter, they first took her to Atgharia hospital. When her condition worsened, she was transferred to Pabna General Hospital and then to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, where she died at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 9.
Attempts to reach the accused teachers Minoyara and Salma Khatun by mobile phone were unsuccessful; their phones were switched off.
The school’s head teacher, contacted by mobile phone, denied the incident, saying, “I am not aware of the matter.”
Atgharia police station officer-in-charge said a complaint had been received and legal action would be taken pending a proper investigation.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report