A six-year-old Dalit student in Andhra's Prakasam district may soon lose vision in her left eye after her teacher allegedly pierced the eye with a pen as punishment.

According to a report in The Hindu, the girl's mother, Dasari Sujatha, told District Collector Sujata Sharma during the “'Prajavani”' programme on Monday that the teacher, P. Srinivasa Reddy, chided her daughter, Dasari Sanika, for not doing her homework on September 14, and lost his cool when she could not write answers for his questions. 

The report adds:

On the pretext of threatening her, the furious teacher allegedly took the pen close to her eyes and she got hurt in her left eye, added the girl's father, Dasari Manohar, and pleaded with the Collector to arrange for a suitable compensation. Giving a patient hearing, the Collector promised to do justice to the hapless girl. 

This is not the first such instance of physical harm to a child by a teacher in the state.

In March last year, two students in Andhra Pradesh were hospitalized after a teacher allegedly asked them to strip and kneel in the sun as corporal punishment for not doing the homework.

The students, who were brothers, collapsed after bearing the heat for three hours at the Mandal Parishad Primary government school in Visakhapatnam's Maradapalem area.

In October last year, a five-year-old girl sustained severe burns after she was allegedly made to sit on an iron playground slide in the sun, during peak afternoon hours, as punishment at a private school for urinating in class.