A teacher of a purohit (Hindu priest) training centre in the Sidhauli area of Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district was arrested for thrashing a 14-year-old student after the boy ran away from the institute, police said. The incident took place in July but came to light after a video of the assault went viral on social media recently, it is learnt. In the two-minute-long video, Satish Joshi (30), the accused, is seen slapping the boy and then beating him up with a stick in the presence of other students. He is also seen lifting the teenager and then flinging him on the floor even as the victim pleads for mercy. On the basis of a complaint filed by Sushil Kumar Srivastava, the manager of a private school, a portion of which was rented out to run the centre for three months, an FIR was lodged on October 8 against Joshi under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act were also invoked against the accused. Sidhauli police station in-charge Rakesh Kumar Singh said Joshi was arrested the day of filing the FIR and was sent to jail. The complainant said, “We had given a portion of our school building to Satish Joshi for running a purohit training centre for three months. The training programme ended on October 12 and around 20 students took part in it.” “I came to know that the boy ran away from the centre during the programme twice. It was the victim’s father who brought him to the centre and asked Joshi to teach him a lesson. The father himself shot the video on his mobile phone and later uploaded it on social media. I filed a police complaint since the boy's father was not ready to do so,” Srivastava added. Joshi is still lodged in jail, he said.
