child right activists visited Bargarh to review the student death incident

The fact finding comprising eminent child-right activists of Orissa pointed fingers on the local police for not taking immediate step in the student death incident which indirectly helps the teacher to abscond from the town. The fact finding team led by child-right state convener Ranjan Mohanty visited Bargarh on Thursday to collect information on the incident where corporal punishment allegedly caused death of a student. The team will soon submit a report with their observation in the incident with specific recommendations.

.“We do not understand why police did not act promptly and allow the teacher to abscond from the town. The delay of police action creates doubt on the sincerity of the police investigation. Even the school authority was quite aware about the behavior of the teacher but did not take step to warn him. Rather the teacher took his own time to temper the school attendance in order to destroy evidence against him. So it creates suspicious in the mind and entire thing need to be reinvestigated through an independent body to unveil truth behind the incident”, child-right state convener and leader of the fact finding team Ranjan Mohanty told.

“During the visit to Bargarh we met the parents and relation of the deceased as well as students and teachers of the George high school where the student was studying and from the conversation with co-students we learnt that the teacher was punishing students regularly and every one of the school knows it. On the day of the incident, the teacher thrashed deceased and gave several fist blows before he asked few other students to beat him”, Moharthy told.

Sources said, the team comprising of child right activists Umesh Purohit of Balangir, Debadutta Tripathy of Bargarh, Pradip Behera of Sambalpur, Rajendra Meher of Boudh and Gouri Sankar Pnada of Sonepur along with few others met senior officials of the police and administrative department of the district during their one day visit to Bargarh. “From the available information we are sure that deceased sustained severe pain with swelling injuries in the chest due to the punishment of the teacher. We also learnt that deceased was not never suffered from any disease and was healthy and sound”, another activist Umesh Purohit told.

On the other hand the team members also expressed concern over the attitude of the state government in this matter. “Government prepared circular after circular during 2007 to ban punishment in school but such circular has not reached to school. So now we want a notification with proper publication of it in state gazette, if government is serious about it”, activist Pradeep Behera suggested

The fact finding team will soon submit a report on this incident. “We are not against discipline. But if you say punishment is the only alternative to maintain discipline than we do not agree with that. We will recommend the government to provide training through various refresher courses for the teachers to educate them how to maintain discipline in the school with out any punishment”, Ranjan Mohanty added.

It may be mentioned here that a class 6^th student of Bargarh’s George high School Ajay Bagarti succumbed to his injuries after he was mercilessly threshed by a teacher Dambarudhar Rana who remains at large after the death of the student. Government suspended him from the service after the incident.