Minister vows to introduce legislation against corporal punishment

Minister vows to introduce legislation against corporal punishment

Lahore (Staff Report): Provincial Minister for School Education Murad Raas has promised to introduce legislation against corporal punishment.

Raas on Friday paid a visit to the house of Hafiz Hunain Bilal, a 17-year-old who was allegedly beaten to death by his teacher in Lahore’s Gulshan-i-Ravi area on Thursday.

"[We] will have to pass laws in the assembly in order to put an end to such incidents," he said and added,"We will introduce laws that would require teachers to obtain a license [before entering the profession] just like doctors."

A case has been registered by the police on behalf of the boy’s father under Sections 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

“The school principal and administration had been mentally torturing my son for the past few days over non-payment of school fees which was deposited today,” the FIR quotes the father as saying.

According to the father, he received a phone call from the principal at 1 pm on Thursday, who informed him of his son’s death. The principal said he was taking the boy to Gosha-e-Shifa Hospital.

“The teacher punched him repeatedly, grabbed his hair and hit his head against the wall, all the while yelling at him,” read the FIR.

According to police’s spokesperson, the boy was taken to the hospital from the school but could not be revived, adding that the accused had been arrested.