KOTTAYAM: The Child Welfare Committee’s (CWC) district unit has called for a report from the district Child Protection Officer, Police Department and Childline on the suicide of a Class IX student of Cross Roads Public School, Pampady. The CWC move follows the reports in this regard.
CWC chairperson K U Marykutty said the committee will discuss the issue at its sitting scheduled for Wednesday. “We don’t know the background and reason behind the student’s suicide. Nonetheless, the departments concerned have been asked to submit a report on the incident and action will be initiated on the basis of findings,” she said.
District Child Protection Officer Binoy V J said he will visit the school on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, the CPC’s Pampady gram panchayat unit will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the issue. Following the death on Saturday of 14-year-old Binto, son of Eapen Varghese of ‘Podiparayil’, Pulickal Kavala, it was alleged the school authorities wanted the CBSE student to be transferred to some other school to ensure 100 per cent victory for their CBSE Class X batch in the coming academic year. According to Varghese, Binto was quite disturbed since the school authorities asked him to return the textbooks for Class X.
“The school authorities asked me to find some other school for my son though he had been a student of Cross Roads right from Class I. I had told them of the practical difficulty in securing admission for him in another school at the fag end of the academic year. After Binto was asked to return the text books for Class X, he did so with great pain,” he said.
However, school administrator Kunjamma Gabriel refuted the charges and said the Class IX results are yet to be announced. “Binto was a good student and he got all the textbooks for the next academic year as well. But his parents wanted him to be transferred to a Malayalam medium school which apparently did not go down well with him,” she said.