December 2, 2022: Tamil Nadu police are on the lookout for the headmistress of a government school in Tamil Nadu's Erode district for allegedly forcing six children from scheduled castes to clean a school toilet.

Jayanthi the mother of a class five student filed a complaint, "HM Ms Geetha Rani singled out only SC children to clean the toilet".

The violation, the mother says, came to light after her son had contracted dengue and was hospitalised recently. She said, "When I asked him how he got dengue, my son said he was bitten by mosquitos when he handled bleaching powder and cleaned the toilet daily".

"Last week, a parent saw them coming out of the toilet with sticks and mugs. When asked, they said they cleaned the toilet, and that the headmistress asked them to do it. 40 children study in that

class, and most of them are our scheduled castes children. She has asked only our children to do this," she added.

Police have registered a case under the Juvenile Justice Act, besides invoking the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.