Will not tolerate students’ mistreatment: Kejriwal
NEWDELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday visited a private school, where authorities had allegedly confined kindergarten students in the “basement” over non-payment of school fees, and said the government and police would take strict action in the case. The CM warned that such treatment of students “will not be tolerated”.
Kejriwal visited Rabea Girls’ Public School in Ballimaran area of Old Delhi along with deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday. They were accompanied environment minister Imran Hussain who is also the local legislator.
“It is not right to treat students like this. Education is the most important issue for our government. The government and police have started their investigation. We will not tolerate such an incident in the future,” Kejriwal told the principal, according to news reports.
The Delhi Police had registered a case against a school for allegedly confining kindergarten students after some parents alleged that 16 girls, aged 4 and 5, were confined to the “basement” of the school on Monday over alleged “non-payment” of fees.
Sisodia said the education department has also launched a probe into the matter. The CM had on Wednesday sought a report from the education department about the alleged confinement of the students.
Meanwhile, Naheed R Usmani, principal of Rabea Girls’ Public School, denied the allegations and said students were kept in school’s activity room and none of the student was kept in the building beyond school hours.
“The chief minister visited the school and I told him that we will find out other ways to inform the parents about non-payment of fees. We had only taken the kids to the activity room so that we could talk to parents one-on-one as classrooms don’t have enough space,” she said.
Usmani had said there were “many students” whose parents have not paid the fees despite repeated reminders. She said the school had asked the students to “wait in the activity room” in order to enable personal communication with each parent.
Delhi Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) chief Manoj Tiwari had also visited the school on Wednesday.