…was forced to seek medical attention
A student attending a private school on the Corentyne in East Berbice, Region Six, was forced to seek medical attention after reportedly being whipped several times on different parts of the body until he bled.
Shazan Khan, a first form student of the Berbice Islamic School at Tain, Corentyne, was given an injection and other medication at the Port Mourant Hospital on Monday afternoon after a beating he allegedly received from a teacher at his school earlier in the day.
In the presence of his brother-in-law, Khan told this publication that he was beaten and called “an animal”.
According to him, he had lent his homework exercise book to a friend to copy his working when a teacher (name given) reportedly took the book away and threw it out of the classroom before asking Khan for his homework assignment.
“I ask him why he throw my book outside, and then he did not answer. Then he go in the office for the ‘wild cane’, came back and asked me for my homework, and I told him, ‘Sir, how can you ask me for my homework when you throw my book outside?’ then he start beat me all over my skin with the wild cane,” the student related.
Khan showed this publication a bloody shirt, which he said was soiled when he started to bleed from the lashes he had received. He also showed marks on his shoulder, while relating that several students, he being one, were chewing gum while in the classroom, and they were told to go and empty their mouths.
“He tell me to go and empty my mouth; that I chewing like a goat; and I tell him that he don’t have the right to call me a goat, and he tell me to get out of the class.”
According to Khan, who also gave the police a statement on the incident, he told his teacher that he was going home to inform his parents what had transpired, and the teacher held on to him and physically assaulted him. Thereafter, he was taken to the office.
“Then he want to give me six (lashes with) the wild cane, and I told him, ‘No, you can’t beat me with the wild cane. Let me go home and tell my parents’,” Khan detailed.
Khan’s brother-in-law, Gladwin Abdulla, said the matter has been reported to the Prime Minister’s Office. He said what was done to Khan was inhumane, and he is seeking to take legal action against the school. The matter has been officially reported at the Whim Police Station.
The teacher at the centre of this allegation is a retired Education Officer with the Department of Education in Region Six. It was not clear up to press time whether the teacher has been questioned by the Police. (Andrew Carmichael)
