Kathmandu, March 10

A Social Science teacher at Jadibuti-based Jagriti Academy, who was arrested last Saturday for allegedly forcing 34 students of Grades VI and VII to slash their wrists as punishment for scoring poor marks in a class test, was remanded to seven-day police custody today by Kathmandu District Court.

Justice Prakash Dhungana of KDC granted permission to police to keep Sita Laxmi Karmacharya, 32, in custody to investigate the case, according to the court’s Section Officer Tika Singh Khatri.

She was arrested after the school filed a first information report following complaints by its students and their parents.

Karmacharya had forced students to slash their wrists if they did not score good marks in the internal assessment examination.

She had threatened that if they did not slash their wrists themselves, she would do so and that might be more painful. Students out of fear had inflicted cuts in their hands on their own.

The class test was of 20 marks. Students, who scored less than 15 marks, were asked to slash their wrists as punishment.