Humiliated, student kills self

BHUBANESWAR: Tension ran high at Capital High School on Friday after a 14- year-old student committed suicide, allegedly after having been humiliated at the school. Pratap Keshari Jena, a Class IX student and a resident of PHD Colony in Satyanagar, took the extreme step by jumping before the train near Satyanagar on Thursday evening.The body was found at the railway tracks at 6.10 am on Friday.Angry locals and relatives staged an agitation in front of the school with Pratap’s body demanding stringent action against the teachers.Alleging that Pratap was a victim of corporal punishment, his relatives said, Pratap was beaten up severely by two of the teachers after they found him whistling and wearing a bracelet in the class.“First, he was slapped by a lady teacher and then two male teachers took him to the corridor and thrashed him in the presence of others,” said a student who was an eye-witness.The class teacher allegedly called up Kedarnath Samal, who had adopted Pratap, and asked him to meet her by 3 pm. “I was in the market, so I told her that I would come to the school on Friday morning,” Samal said, adding that between 3.30 pm and 4.25 pm, the teacher called him twice asking if Pratap had returned home or not.When Pratap did not return home after the school, his relatives started searching for him.“The same teacher visited our house in the evening after we informed her that Pratap had not returned home and asked us to keep looking for him instead of filing a case with the police,” said Samal, a small time stationery vendor.Failing to trace him, Samal and Pratap’s cousin Sanjeev then lodged a missing complaint with Kharavel Nagar police station late in the evening.On Friday morning, Samal came to know about Pratap’s body being found near the rail tracks.Refuting the allegation of corporal punishment, headmaster Bandana Mohapatra said if any thing of this sort had happened, it would have come to her notice first.She said higher authorities have been informed about the incident and an inquiry will be initiated.“The report will be submitted in two to three days and action would be taken accordingly,” she said.