A court in Dhaka has sent a teacher of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College to jail on charges of instigating the suicide of ninth-grader.
Police produced Hasna Hena in the court of Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate on Thursday (Dec 6) after she was arrested the previous day.
Hena is among the three teachers sued by the family of 15-year-old Aritree Adhikari, who killed herself on Monday (Dec 3) after the school’s teachers allegedly humiliated her and her parents on the accusation of cheating in an exam.
Hena was in-charge of the ninth-grader Aritree’s class. The case started by the girl’s family also accuses Acting Principal Nazneen Ferdous and morning shift in-charge Zinat Akhtar.
The death and the subsequent agitation, joined by parents, rocked the 66-year-old institute with demonstrations erupting from Tuesday (Dec 4), which led the school authorities and the education ministry to open two separate inquiries.
On Wednesday (Dec 5), the ministry probe panel filed its report, when the government scrapped benefits for the three teachers under its monthly pay order (MPO) scheme and Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid instructed the school’s governing body to fire the teachers.
Hours later, school authorities sacked Acting Principal Nazneen Ferdous, Hasna Hena and Zinat Akhtar.
Around 11pm the same day, the Detective Branch arrested Hena from her home in the capital’s Uttara.
The death of Aritree exposes controversial handling of students and teachers’ behaviour with their parents and guardians when anything goes wrong at Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, one of the top schools in Bangladesh.