A physics teacher, who hit a Class 12 student with a cane for not being regular in Tamil Nadu's Chidambaram, was arrested on Friday after a video went viral. A video of the teacher thrashing the student on Wednesday, October 13, was made by other students in the class and uploaded on social media and went viral. The incident took place at Nandanar Boys High school in Chidambaram.

The teacher, identified as Subramanian, was infuriated after a student did not attend his previous class and on Wednesday he made him kneel down and resorted to caning. The teacher had also kicked the student repeatedly. After the vidoe went viral, the student, who was given corporal punishment complained to the school principal, who in turn reported the matter to the education department.

The school in-charge Sundara Pandian while speaking to IANS said that he had reported the matter to the police. The headmaster of the school had earlier told TNM that eight students had come to school on Wednesday and attended the first hour. “But as it was physics class in the second hour and because Subramanian teacher conducts daily class tests, these eight students decided to skip the class,” he said, adding, “During my rounds, I saw these students sitting on the second floor of the school and brought them back to the class and requested the teacher to allow them to attend his class. Subramanian questioned the students for skipping the class and subsequently went on to hit them. The video of him beating a student was recorded by two boys of the same class.”

The Tamil Nadu government in its order has clearly mentioned that the students can prefer both offline and online classes and the punishment meted out to the student during the pandemic period was decried with the state education department taking up the matter seriously.

The teacher was produced before the Cuddalore judicial magistrate who remanded him to judicial custody. Education Department officials told IANS that a department-level inquiry would be conducted against the teacher and necessary action would be taken.

With IANS inputs