Student’s suicide: Principal, two teachers booked

Gagandeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 19

Twelve days after the death of Ramandeep Kaur (13), a Class VIII student of the local St Xavier’s School, the Civil Lines police today booked the principal, Father Eulalio Farnandes, and teachers Neha and Poonam Ahluwalia on the charges of abetment to suicide under Sections 305 and 34 of the IPC.

The case was registered after an inquiry was conducted by DSP-2 Gurpreet Singh on the statement of Amarjeet Singh, father of the minor girl. The DSP confirmed the development and said the accused were booked under non-bailable sections and they would soon be held. A suicide note was recovered from the student’s school bag six days after her demise. The girl’s father handed over the same to the police.

With the registration of the case, the mystery surrounding her death has been solved and it is now confirmed that she committed suicide. She was found unconscious near government quarters in the Civil Lines area on October 25, the day she went to the school for rehearsals of the annual function. Her father had been accusing the school principal and two teachers right from the beginning.

The girl’s family first admitted her to a local hospital from where she was referred to the PGI, Chandigarh. After struggling for life, she died at the PGI on November 7. In her suicide note, she had accused the principal and the two teachers of harassing her.

The principal could not be contacted as his mobile phone was switched off.

The development comes a day after Wing Commander C Deepak Dogra (retd), principal of Government Meritorious School, Ghabdan village (Sangrur), was booked on the charge of sexually harassing two Class XII girls. The police had registered a case under Section 354-A of the IPC and the POCSO Act after an inquiry committee had indicted the principal.