School locks up 19 kids for not paying fee
Even though the school is collecting fee as high as ₹75,000 from each student in the name of tuition fee, annual day celebration, transportation, books and regular fee, the education department is not taking any action.
Hyderabad police on Saturday booked the management of a private school for allegedly locking up 19 students in the age group of 5-14 years in a room for more than an hour for not paying their school fee on time.
The incident happened on Saturday morning.
According to the police, P Rajini Prabha, principal of Saritha Vidya Nikethan at Hayathnagar, segregated as many as 19 students from others who came to write their annual examinations.
She confined them in a room and bolted it from outside.
One of the students, however, managed to contact her parents with the help of another parent who came to pay the fee.
Soon, parents arrived at the school and questioned the principal for locking up their children.
“If there is any issue of payment of school fee, the principal should inform us and not confine them in the room,” Janga Reddy, one of the parents, said.
The parents brought the issue to the notice of Hayathnagar police and the Andhra Pradesh child rights association. Hayathnagar police inspector J Narender Goud, who rushed to the school, got the students released from the room.
“It was only after the parents cleared the fee dues that the principal allowed the students to write the examination,” Goud said.
Child rights association president P Achyuta Rao said the confinement of students in a room was a gross violation of child rights and was illegal.
“Even though the school is collecting fee as high as ₹ 75,000 from each student in the name of tuition fee, annual day celebration, transportation, books and regular fee, the education department is not taking any action,” Rao said.
A case has been registered against the school management under Section 342 of the IPC (illegal confinement) and Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act, the inspector said.