KOLAR: A case in which three students were taken ill on Monday after drinking water at Morarji Desai Residential School near KGF has taken a curious turn with police investigation revealing that a homesick Class 9 boy had mixed rat poison with water.
The reason for this was the student thought he could go home if the school declared a few days of holiday in the event of any untoward incident. The three students are now being treated at RL Jalappa Hospital.
KGF Superintendent of Police KM Shantharaju said the three students fell ill after they drank water kept at the administrative block of the school. After this, police registered a case under Section 328 of the IPC and launched an investigation.
Boy sent to rehab centre
The investigation revealed that the Class 9 boy, who returned to the residential school on Monday after spending a few days at his house, brought rat poison from home and put it into the water can kept at the administrative block. Usually, students do not go there to drink water. But on that fateful day, the three students drank water from that can and fell ill, he said.
The police zeroed in on the boy after some employees of the school stated that he was loitering in the administrative block on that day, Shantharaju said. After informing his parents, the boy was produced before the local Juvenile Justice Board, which sent him to a rehabilitation centre for counselling, he said. “The boy doesn’t want to be an inmate of the residential school,” he said.