Ballia student’s death: Private school teacher arrested

A private school teacher was arrested on Thursday after her 11-year-old student, who she had allegedly slapped, died the previous day. The teacher, Rajni Upadhyay, was sent to jail after she was produced before a local court. According to police, the slap had caused the class four student Supriya Verma’s head to hit the classroom wall. The postmortem report, police said, stated that the girl suffered two contusion marks on the right side of her head, which caused her death.

“The alleged incident happened during a class in St. Xaviers School on Tuesday. Rajni Upadhyay slapped Supriya Verma. According to the complaint (filed by the girl’s father), Supriya was sitting on the last bench and her head hit the classroom wall after the slap,” said Jagdish Chandra Yadav, station house officer of Rasra police station. Ballia Superintendent of Police (SP) Anil Kumar said, “The girl complained of severe headache. The school then called her parents. By the time they reached the school the girl had fainted and they rushed her to the nearby Community Health Centre (CHC). She was taken to a private hospital in Mau district later where the doctors advised her to be rushed to the BHU hospital in Varanasi stating her condition was serious.”

“The girl was admitted to BHU hospital in Varanasi where she died on Wednesday early morning during treatment,” said SHO Yadav. A case was registered against the teacher, school principal and the manager at the Rasra police station on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and criminal intimidation.

“Based on the complaint filed by the victim’s father Santosh Verma, an FIR was lodged Wednesday against teacher Rajni Upadhyay, school principal Sangeeta Devi and its manager Munna Singh, under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. The father alleged that they had misbehaved with them when they reached the school on Wednesday demanding action in the case,” SHO said. The school has since remained shut and the matter would be more clear once we talk to the other students present in the class that time, he added.