PANJIM: The issue of corporal punishment to a student of Miracles High School, Sanguem has been laid to rest as teacher Keegan Gomes has been exonerated of all charges and allegations.
Miracles High School was in the news in February this year following reports that one of its teachers Keegan Gomes allegedly inflicted corporal punishment on one of the students studying in Class VII, who complained of breathlessness after he was made to run in the scorching heat.
The student’s mother in her complaint made charges against teacher Gomes, which was then referred to the Court of Secretary (Women and Child), Secretariat, Porvorim by the Sanguem Police Station vide complaint dated March 24, 2023 against the said teacher.
In the proceedings that followed, Gomes was heard and the medical and enquiry report was taken on record and also the report of the school headmaster Filastro Cardozo was taken into consideration.
In the ensuing order on the incident it was stated, “Corporal Punishment is defined as a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. Further it stated that the concerned period was a physical training class and the physical training teacher was attending a workshop on the said day. The students were making noise and were disturbing the other class conducted by Keegan Gomes, who asked the students to take rounds on the school ground. The said action of the teacher does not amount to corporal punishment and hence Keegan Gomes is exonerated from all the charges/allegations against him by the complainant,” said Secretary (Women and Child) Arun Kumar Mishra.
When contacted, school headmaster Filastro Cardozo said, “A lot of hullaballo was needlessly created over a non-issue which was blown out of proportions giving undeserved negative publicity to the concerned teacher and the school. And now the truth has finally prevailed.”
The incident occurred on February 24, 2023, when as many as 45 students were asked to run 265 rounds of the school ground by the teacher as punishment for being noisy in the class. After half-an-hour in the mid-morning heat, some student fainted and some started having breathing problems and had to be admitted to the primary health centre, Sanguem, for treatment.
