The police in Arunachal Pradesh’s Papum Pare district on Sunday arrested three employees of a school after a Class VI student was found dead. Two minors were also detained.
The incident happened at the Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya (VKV) in the Sher area near Kimin town on Friday evening.
“The autopsy report said the boy died of asphyxia. A case was registered against the three employees for abetting suicide,” the district’s Superintendent of Police Jimmy Chiram told The Hindu from district headquarters Yupia.
He said three employees of the school were arrested and two boys detained for production in a local court and Juvenile Justice Board respectively. The case against the employees was under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, and the minor boys under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act (punishment for cruelty to child).
According to the police inquiry report, the boy was missing after a fight among a group of students at the end of the school’s games and sports period. Two students found him dead almost two hours later in the bathroom of the hostel.
Probe demanded
The district’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has demanded an impartial probe into the incident. CWC members from Yupia and State capital Itanagar visited the school on Saturday and recorded the statements of the teachers, students and others besides asking the school authorities to install CCTV cameras.
The VKV in Sher was in the news in 2019 after some students of lower classes were allegedly sodomised by their seniors. The same year, the school authorities had also rusticated 60 students of Classes XI and X for vandalising school and hostel property.
Kani Nada Maling, general secretary of the Arunachal Pradesh Women’s Welfare Society, also visited the school. She said most of the students were found to be too scared to report any wrongdoing.
(Helpline for children in Papum Pare district/Itanagar: 9963117777; those who require assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts may see Suicide prevention helplines.)
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