Shariatpur: In a heinous way to punish the school students, a teacher of a primary school in Jajira upazila has forced some 28 students of class IV to drink contaminated water from a sewer for not completing their lessons.

Victims, their parents and locals alleged Shahanaz Parveen, assistant teacher of Gangaprashad Govt Primary School, arranged the punishment for the students as 28 students out of total 31 failed to submit their regular class lessons on Wednesday.

Borhan, a student of the class, said ‘Lamisha, Nirob and I completed the lesson properly. As a result, madam (Parveen) didn’t ask us to drink polluted water. I brought the dirty water from the sewer through a container following the order of madam. Later, Asif was forced to drink one glass of the contaminated water at first.’

Locals said the body of a dog was dumped into the sewer two weeks back.

The victim students didn’t disclose the matter with anybody else fearing to be criticism in the society.

However, it was disclosed after some of the students fell sick, sparking off huge criticism in the area.

On Saturday, the guardians of the victim students came to the school and filed complaint demanding the punishment and withdrawal of the teacher.

Mannan Hawladar, father of class IV student Jahid, said his son fall sick on Wednesday night by drinking contaminated water.

Contacted, Shahnaj Parveen, also the daughter of the school management committee’s president of the school, denied the allegation saying she just threatened the students to drink contaminated water. ‘I didn’t ask them to drink,’ she added.

Jajira upazila nirbahi officer M Hafizur Rahman said he heard the allegation.

The upazila assistant primary education officer will be sent to the school on Sunday for a fact-finding mission, said the UNO, adding necessary steps will be taken against the teacher if she is found guilty.