Tribune Reporters
Sahnewal/Ludhiana, Sept 2
The “insulting and abusive language” used by a Deputy DEO and his clerk allegedly led to deterioration in the health of the head teacher of Government Primary School, Sahnewal. While the teacher is stated to be in a serious condition, her kin are seeking immediate termination of service or transfer of the Deputy District Education Officer (DEO) and the clerk.
Sukhpreet Kaur, sister-in-law of head teacher Swapandeep Kaur, said the latter was an award-winning teacher. Yesterday, DEO Rajwinder Kaur came to the school while a vaccination drive was on and blamed the head teacher for not supporting the medical staff. She demanded more rooms for them to function. Swapandeep, in turn, complained of not being informed about the camp earlier. She stated that the school had a strength of 650 students and it was very difficult to stuff them all in four rooms. The school has just five rooms while two are under construction. “As the DEO went away, Deputy DEO Kuldeep Singh Saini and one of his clerks, Harwinder Singh Romy, began to threaten the head teacher and used abusive language against her,” Sukhpreet said.
Swapandeep found their words very insulting and suffered a panic attack and fell unconscious.
She was taken to a private hospital at Doraha where she was in a critical state till the filing of the report. “No one has the right to use such abusive language for anyone. She is in a critical condition. If anything goes wrong, these two would be responsible. We seek immediate termination or transfer of the Deputy DEO and the clerk,” Sukhpreet added.
As per the orders of the DEO and Deputy DEO to vacate rooms for the vaccination staff, the children at the primary school were made to sit in the scorching heat.
One of the teachers at the school said, “The students spent the whole day out in the hot weather to accommodate the vaccination staff, who had dropped in without any written intimation. One of the children even received injuries in the stampede a day before, as the sudden rush of those interested in getting vaccinated proved too much to handle”.
Another teacher, on the condition of anonymity, said the Deputy DEO had threatened to transfer the head teacher and she got terrified. “We had no written orders for this vaccination camp. On top of it, we have the huge responsibility of 600-plus students. Instead of listening to our problems, the Deputy DEO started behaving rudely with the head teacher and she suffered an attack,” the teacher said.
Meanwhile, the principal of another government school has complained about Saini’s rudeness. She said around 15 days ago, during a zoom meeting, she was targeted by him but things got sorted out with the intervention of the DEO.
On the other hand, Deputy DEO Saini said “These are mere allegations to settle scores with me. I did not say anything to the teacher and she suffered the attack after an hour or so. If I had said anything, she could have suffered attack then itself. I never spoke rudely with her and these are tactics to tarnish my image”.
Sahnewal: Head teacher ‘insulted’ by Dy DEO, suffers panic attack
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