A nine-year-old Dalit girl in Haryana’s Hisar district was paraded around her school last week with her face smeared with black ink for scoring low marks in an exam, The Hindu reported on Tuesday. The incident occured on December 6, when the Class 4 student’s teacher blackened her face for failing to score the minimum eight marks required in an English exam.
Police spokesperson Vikas Kumar said a First Information Report was registered under the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Atrocities (Prevention) Act, and the Juvenile Justice Act on Monday, a day after the girl’s father submitted a complaint against the teacher and the school.
“My daughter refused to go to school on Saturday,” the girl’s father told Hindustan Times. “When I asked her the reason, she kept crying. Later, my younger daughter narrated the entire episode to me.”
When police officers visited the school on Monday, they found it closed, said Sabzi Mandi Station House Officer Jagjeet Singh. The girl’s father said the school has CCTVs, and asked the police to check the footage for evidence.
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