Principal arrested, gets bail; suspect sent to juvenile home
LUCKNOW: The police on Thursday arrested Rachit Manas, principal and co-director of Brightland School, in connection with the boy stabbing case after chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the injured child in hospital.
The Class 1 student was stabbed repeatedly by a senior girl student on the school premises on Tuesday morning.
Manas was later produced before a court, which granted him bail. He is accused of negligence in ensuring safety of students and not informing the incident to police for over 24 hours.
Yogi visited the Trauma Centre to take stock of the medical facilities being provided to the victim and interacted with him and his parents. He even directed the SSP to supervise the case as it was sensitive in nature.
The child’s agitated parents staged a demonstration against the school authorities and demanded stern action in the case. The incident took place on Tuesday morning but the school management informed police on Wednesday after the picture of the injured boy Hrithik Sharma (6) went viral on the social media.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Lucknow, Deepak Kumar said Manas was arrested and produced before court. “He was released after the court granted him bail,” he said.
Kumar added that the stateconscience. ment of the 12-year-old suspect, a student of Class 7, had been recorded. “She was produced before the court as the juvenile justice board (JJB) hearing was not scheduled on Thursday. The court has sent her to the girls’ juvenile home in Barabanki for a day. JJB will take up the matter on Friday,” he said.
While the girl and her parents denied the allegations, the SSP said the police suspected her involvement as the boy had identified her through her photograph. He said the girl apparently stabbed Hrithik to get the school closed.
“The boy has claimed that while stabbing him, the girl murmured that the school will be closed if she kills him. A kitchen knife and a scarf used in tying the boy’s limbs have also been recovered from the school premises,” he added.
The SSP said strands of girl’s hair had also been recovered from the toilet where the boy was stabbed and locked. He said the hair would be sent for forensic examination.
A team of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), headed by Sangeeta Sharma, visited the girl’s house and interacted with her. Sharma said the girl and her parents were denying her involvement in the incident.
“The girl is only 12 and is scared after the police and school administration started questioning her. It is too early to arrive at any conclusion. The CWC team will again interact with the girl and counsel her,” she said.
On Tuesday morning, Hrithik was allegedly held hostage by the girl who stabbed him after tying his limbs with a scarf. She fled from the spot after locking the boy in the toilet on the second floor of the building.
The boy was rescued when the school’s discipline in-charge Amit Chauhan went on a round to see if all the students were out for morning assembly. Chauhan heard the boy’s screams and rescued him.
In September last year, a seven-year-old student of a Gurgaon school was found dead in the washroom with his throat slit by a sharp-edged weapon. A 16-year-old student was charged with committing the crime.