Student’s parents held for assault on teacher at Thoothukudi school

MADURAI: Three persons including the father, mother, and grandfather of a Class 2 boy student of an aided primary school at Keelanambipuram village near Ettayapuram in Thoothukudi district, were arrested on Tuesday night for assaulting school staff.

They were charged with assaulting the school headmistress and a teacher inside the campus. The incident occurred at around noon on Tuesday.

Those arrested were identified as M Sivalingam (34), the student’s father, his grandfather Muniyasamy (53), and his mother Selvi (28), sources said on Wednesday.

Investigations carried out by the Ettayapuram police revealed that the teacher R Barath (38), a resident of Tharuvaikulam, instructed the student, who sat rows behind, after he found him inattentive in the classroom, to sit in front of him.

When the student walked up to sit in the front row, he slipped accidentally and fell down. After learning this, the student’s grandfather Muniyasamy approached the school and reprimanded the teacher for his behavior. Muniyasamy then took the issue with his son Sivalingam, the student’s father, and his mother Selvi (28).

They got irked, thinking that the teacher beat the student and pushed him down, and trespassed into the school, chased the teacher down and thrashed him. The unruly behavior was caught on video and circulated on social media prompting police action against them.

The video also showed the student’s mother Selvi threatening the teacher with dire consequences. Local sources said the teacher scolded the student since he did not do the home assignment properly.

However, the Ettayapuram police filed a case against the three under five sections of IPC and arrested them.