Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR, Sept 3: A Class 10 student, who had jumped from his school building in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district last week, has died at a hospital, police say.
Tanveer Singh, 15, was battling for his life in the Intensive Care Unit of the Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar after he critically injured himself following a jump from his school building at least nine days ago. He died late on Sunday.
One of his teachers has been arrested, police said.
“A teacher, Altaf Hussain Tilwari has been taken into custody for interrogation,” a senior officer of the police said.
He said Hussain has been booked under section 325 of the Ranbir Penal Code pertaining to “injury with intention of grievous hurt”.
Parents and relatives allege that the teacher would harass Singh for “communal reasons” and also pushed him out of the class window of the two-storeyed school building.
The Principal of the school, Sheikh Ghulam Mohammad, denies that the boy was harassed or pushed and said he jumped on his own and hurt himself.
“Why should anyone have pushed him? They say he was tortured because he was a Sikh? One of our teachers who is also a Sikh, says otherwise,” Sheikh said.
The eyewitness teacher, Jaipal Singh, says, “I was outside when I saw him standing on the verandah. Nobody else was there. I whistled at him, but no sooner had I done that than he jumped”
According to media reports published in various newspapers, Singh was barred from appearing in his tenth class examinations by the school authorities after he failed in a class test, hinting that he was under immense mental stress.
However, the principal said Singh was not on rolls at all as a regular student, but had been admitted in the tenth standard on “humanitarian grounds”.
“What has been published in media is pure fiction. Tanveer Singh was a little weak academically and we had told his parents that we could not promote him to 10th class after he did not do well in the ninth standard. That was many months ago.
But they pleaded with us to let him study in the school informally without proper admission, he said.
“I can’t comment on what could have forced him to take such an extreme step.”
