Booked for gifting phone to student, teacher ends life

Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, December 7

Booked last month for gifting a mobile phone to a girl student of a Ropar school, a teacher today hanged himself in his sister’s house at Piplanwala village in Hoshiarpur.

Khushbaksh Singh told the police that his wife’s brother, Varinder Singh (45), a resident of Ropar, had arrived at his house a few days ago.

The investigating officer, ASI Bhajan Lal, said the body had been sent to a hospital for a post-mortem examination. No suicide note was found.

The Ropar police had booked two schoolteachers on the complaint of District Education Officer (DEO) Sharanjit Singh after the principal complained that they had purchased a mobile phone for a student of Government Senior Secondary School, Bharatgarh. It was alleged that one of the teachers had bought the handset, while the other had procured the SIM card. An FIR had been registered against Varinder Singh and Durga Das under Section 354-A and 354-D of the IPC and under provisions of the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act on November 15.