Schoolgirls’ suicide: two teachers detained

The two girls had named the two teachers in their suicide note

Bangalore : Karnataka : 19/03/2014 . Family members and crowd protesting infront of Mary Immaculate Convent Primary and High School keeping bodies of girls who committed sucide at Sankey Tank yesterday due to punishment received for playing Holi in school in Bangalore on 19th March 2014. Photo : K . Bhagya Prakash

The Sadashivanagar police detained two teachers of Mary Immaculate English School in Adugodi on Wednesday in connection with the suicide of J. Priyanka (16) and Sonali Gupta (15), students of SSLC and 9th standard respectively at the school.

The two girls committed suicide by drowning in Sankey Tank on Tuesday after allegedly being reprimanded by two teachers for their poor academic performance and for having celebrated Holi on the school premises. The two girls were among the seven who were punished for playing Holi in school.

The parents and relatives of the two dead girls staged a protest in front of the school here on Wednesday. They reached the school premises with the dead bodies of the girls and demanded that they be let inside the premises. But the management had declared a holiday, and so the protesters, including activists of a Kannada group and parents of other students of the school, put up a pandal and continued to stage a protest demanding action against the teachers responsible for the suicide of the girls.

Though additional police forces were deployed on the spot, they found it difficult to control the crowd. Janardhan, Priyanka’s father, said that no child should face such harassment in future and demanded that the teachers responsible for his daughter’s death be arrested.

District in-charge Minister R. Ramalinga Reddy visited the school and told the protesters that it was tragic that the girls had taken an extreme step, and added that it was an immature step.

Ravikanthe Gowda, DCP (Central), told

The Hindu that the two students had named principal Mary Laila and teacher Philomena Immanuel in their suicide note and hence the police had detained the two and were questioning them. A case of abetment to suicide has been registered against the two, he added.