VASAI: The teacher who made a 13-year-old Vasai girl do 100 sit-ups with her bag on her back for being late to school by 10 mins, which is suspected to have led to her death, was arrested on Wednesday on the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.Waliv police lodged an FIR against the teacher, Mamta Yadav, late on Tuesday. Yadav had punished Gaud, along with a few other students who arrived late, on Nov 8. After reaching home, the child’s health deteriorated. She was admitted to a hospital in Vasai and later shifted to the state govt-run JJ Hospital in Byculla, where she died a week later. The death prompted a scrutiny of the Vasai school, which revealed that it had been enrolling and teaching students for Classes 9 and 10 even though it had permission for intake only till Class 8. The education department had said an investigation would be carried out. Accordingly, a team visited the school on Tuesday. It was also found that the school doesn’t have the adequate infrastructure and operates out of a chawl-like structure. VVCMC had earlier placed a warning display board at the entrance stating that the structure was illegal, but school authorities allegedly masked it. Activists questioned VVCMC’s crackdown on illegal constructions. Holding it accountable, Terence Hendriques, an activist, said the civic body’s job didn’t end with just putting up the warning board. “Had it taken suitable action earlier, we could have avoided this tragedy.” He demanded that VVCMC send notices to illegal school structures immediately. Sources said VVCMC had sent a notice to the school asking it to place on record all permissions it had to operate classes out of that structure.
