Shadow of shock hovering
‘She comes and sits here’, say villagers unwilling to enter, let alone pass, the primary school where a mother of two was raped and murdered on Wednesday night
LUCKNOW/MOHANLALGANJ: “The school building is haunted… The (victim) teacher comes and sits in a corner of the school. So none of the students have come here in the past two days. It doesn’t seem that things would normalise soon,” a middle-aged resident of Balsinghkheda village in Mohanlalganj tells Hindustan
Times, while refusing to go anywhere close to the primary school where a 35-year-old teacher was brutally raped and murdered two days ago.
On Saturday, the school — catering to children of Balsinghkheda and adjoining Mavaiya village — wore a deserted look. Except for a motley group of media persons, social activists and some villagers, no one has dared to cross the path. The number of tempos passing through the area has dwindled. Likewise, attendance at the other primary schools located nearby has also declined steadily.
“I wanted to go to school. But none of the tempos that pass through the area are willing to stop anywhere near the place (crime scene). The number of regular tempos passing through the area have also decreased over the past two days,” student of a private school told HT.
And even as villagers are trying hard to swerve past the crime spot, the beastly rape of the mother of two has sent a shockwave across the 35 houses in the hamlet, mostly the Yadavs.
“None of us has slept since the day the barbaric rape and murder came to light. We have seen the blood stains all around the school campus and are yet to overcome fear,” said one Shailendra.
But this is not the first case. There are whispers that a mentally challenged girl was raped and dumped on the school premises a few months ago. However, there is no documented proof of the incident.