Pakistani authorities have suspended the head teacher of a government school for assaulting a Christian student and abusing his mother.

Nusrat Shaheen was suspended on Oct. 22 after a complaint of discrimination against 12-year- old Sharjeel Masih by his parents.

Sharjeel, a fourth grader, was beaten and suspended for a week from the Government Boys Primary School of District Attock, Punjab province. The district education officer has launched an inquiry into the incident.

“I was just trying to turn off a running tap when the teacher grabbed me, called me churha (low caste) and asked why I had touched the tap and made it filthy. ‘This tap is not from the country of your mother,’ she said before abusing me. I had to sit outside the school for five hours,” said Sharjeel, whose father works in a military hospital as a sanitary worker.

His mother Farzana Ejaz recounted the humiliation of the incident to ucanews.com.

“I accompanied him to school the next day to apologize for any mistake committed by my son. She [Nusrat Shaheen] asked me to grab her feet for the mistake of my son and threatened that her brother, a police officer, would sell my younger daughter to a brothel,” said the mother of three.