FIR against teacher for making kids clean toilet with mid-day meal plates

The Madhya Pradesh police has registered a case against a government primary school teacher for allegedly making his students clean a toilet in the institute using midday meal plates.

Police said an FIR has been lodged against the teacher Rameshwar Patel under SC/ST (prevention of atrocities) Act as most of the students that were made to clean the toilets belonged to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. Patel has also been booked under IPC Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection or disease dangerous to life) and 374 (unlawful compulsory labour).

“Investigation is going on in the case. If we find proof then a case will be lodged against others also”, Shradha Shukla, Madiadoh police station in-charge, said.

On November 8, students of Class 1 to 5 were allegedly directed by Patel to clean a toilet in the school, located at Doli village in Damoh district, during the lunch break using mid-day meal utensils.

The students followed the instructions and later told their parents about ‘cleanliness drive’, who then registered their protest with school authorities. When the local media raised the issue, Damoh superintendent of police Vivek Agrawal ordered an inquiry into matter.

Patel has denied the charges leveled against him, stating that it was in fact the school’s teachers and not students who cleaned the only urinal present in the school.

“Teachers along with the students were cleaning school surroundings. The school has only one urinal, which was cleaned by us, not children. The plates that were no longer being used to serve mid-day meals were used in the cleaning exercise,” he said.

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