Odisha teen poisons 19 classmates to skip school

BHUBANESWAR: He just really didn’t want to be in school, but his wish to play traunt took a dark and dangerous turn.

On December 8, a 16-year-old student from a residential school in Odisha’s Bargarh put himself and 19 of his classmates in hospital after lacing drinking water with insecticide in the hope that an illness outbreak would force authorities to not hold classes. Fortunately, they all survived.

Two days before that, the boy returned to the residential Kamagaon higher secondary school after a two-day break. He was deeply disappointed, but felt there was hope. That morning, his social media feeds were abuzz with news of the impending danand ger of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and the possibility that schools would be shut again.

Then arrived a message on a WhatsApp group from the principal, Premananda Patel. There was no such plan, the social media posts were a hoax. By now, the 16-year-old was determined that school must shut down. He told his friends he would find a way. And the method was drastic. On Wednesday afternoon, two boarders of the hostel in the school complained of nausea vomiting after they drank water from a plastic bottle kept in a room of one of the students. Over the next two hours, 18 more complained of the same symptoms, sending school authorities in a panic, and forcing them to be admitted to hospital.

“As it was a case of insecticide poisoning, we had to make them undergo gastric lavage to cleanse their upper intestinal tract of any remnants of poison so that it does not get absorbed during digestion. As the student drank water laced with insecticide there was a great risk of this. Luckily, all of them are out of danger. But we are keeping them for observation in the hospital till Sunday,” said Dr Arun Kumar Patra, chief district medical officer of Bargarh.

The 16-year-old pretended to sip the water as well, and as his classmates from Class 11 complained of the symptoms, he pretended to have them too. At the hospital, the charade continued, so the doctor at the Bargarh district hospital referred him to a medical college in Sambhalpur.

“But he slinked away to his home 48km away. That raised suspicion and after some inquiries with the affected students we found out that the student had conspired to get the school shut down,” said Patel.

“He became hopeful when he saw some social media posts which said a lockdown was imminent on December 19. However, he was disappointed when I put up a message of a police official in our WhatsApp group which clearly said such social media posts were a hoax. He then told some of his friends that he would somehow get the college shut down,” he said.

STUDENT ADMITS TO HAVING LACED WATER WITH AN INSECTICIDE TO GET CLASSES SUSPENDED