the goan I network
PANAJI
A First Information Report was registered at the Panaji police station on Saturday against Maria Zita, the principal of Royale Secondary School, Taleigao for physically abusing a minor student aged 14, with a steel ruler.
Offences have been registered under Section 8 of the Goa Children’s Act 2003 and Section 323 of the IPC, after the victim’s father approached the police station. The offence was committed between 7:30 and 8:45 am, reads the complaint that was filed.
The sister of the boy told ‘The Goan’ that her brother was hit several times by the Principal on Saturday morning, after which he was sent home.
“I dropped him to school at 7:30 in the morning, and left. There was no electricity, so my brother told a friend in Hindi, “Probably the school hasn’t paid the electricity bill”, she said. His sister then alleged that the principal came in and started hitting the boy. She was, however, unclear about how the principal had learnt about what the boy had said earlier.
“My brother came home with marks on his neck and stomach. After hitting him, the principal told him to go home, and that he would not be taken into the school anymore,” she said. The boy is then reported to have walked home.
The father of the boy who was shocked to see his son with several injury marks on his body, went straight to the police station to register a complaint.
When asked for her version of what happened in the school, the principal Maria Zita first denied that she was the principal of the school. She later told ‘The Goan’ that the boy had back-answered her, and that maybe it was the parents who had hit him and were trying to put the blame on her. PSI Vibhavari Gaonkar is further investigating
the case.
This is not the first time that the principal has come under the scanner. An FIR had been registered against her in 2014 for harassing students, and again in 2017 for the same offence. Parents had even demanded the removal of the principal last year.
