Student’s suicide: CMS sacks four teachers

LUCKNOW: City Montessori School management on Wednesday sacked four teachers accused of meting out physical punishment to a student, that allegedly caused him to commit suicide. The management said corporal punishment was against the policy of the school. However, the inconsolable family of the student said that whatever the school did, their child would never come back.

Vishal Pandey, 13, a Class 8 student of City Montessori School, Kanpur Road branch, committed suicide on the night of August 1 following alleged humiliation by teachers, who according to the family, insulted him in the presence of other students.

Vishal committed suicide because he was harassed at school, said Sudipta Pandey, the boy’s elder sister. She said that her brother was repeatedly harassed by some teachers who had formed a group-of-sorts. “We are shattered and deeply saddened by this extreme step that my little brother took because of the pressure he was facing at school,” she said.

The victim’s sisters, also pass-outs of CMS, have created a Facebook page-The CMS Lifeto fight against the system that humiliates little kids. It says: “We are not against CMS. We are simply against this system in which sometimes teachers form a group and humiliate kids. This time it was my brother. Next time it could be some other kid.”

The boy’s mother Vijay Laxmi Pandey is a police officer.

Sudipta said that her brother was a very happy-go-lucky soul. “When a child like him can give up on his life then we can imagine the plight of introverts,” she said.

The family had planned to take out a candle light march at GPO, Hazratganj on Wednesday evening so that next time there was no such incident with any other kid. But they called it off for want of support from NGOs.