A 14-year-old school girl, V. Kavitha, committed suicide by setting herself ablaze on Thursday, after she was warned by her school authorities on Wednesday for allegedly helping a friend copy in the annual examination. The class IX student was reportedly caught while passing on her answer sheet to the friend.
In her slam book, which was at her Ayanavaram residence, she had written that her ‘madam' had scolded her and that she felt humiliated. She had used English letters to write Tamil sentences. Kavitha, a student of Dr. Salai Govindarajan Matriculation School for Girls in Ayanavaram took her social science exam on Wednesday afternoon and resorted to the extreme step around 2.30 p.m. on Thursday.
On Thursday evening, the locality was crowded with neighbours and relatives gathering around their home on Parasuram Eswaran Koil Street. Kavitha's mother V. Parvathi was unable to come to terms with the shocking incident. “She would study very well and we have never had a chance to scold her. She was disappointed that somehow she had earned a bad reputation because of this incident. But we never thought she would resort to such an extreme step,” she said.
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“In her school, teachers said the exam supervisor caught her passing on her answer sheet to another girl seated beside her. They scolded her and asked her to bring her parent for an explanation, in order to be allowed to take her Tamil - paper II on Friday” said Parvathi, who works as an office assistant at a school in Anna Nagar.
On Thursday afternoon, Kavitha went to the school with her father Venugopal, a cab driver, to the school and met the headmistress and teacher. An investigating officer at the Ayanavaram station said: “Since she was good in studies, the headmistress simply warned her and obtained a written explanation from her.”
After the meeting in the afternoon, Venugopal and Kavitha reached home. Soon after, Venugopal went to a hotel nearby to buy some lunch, and Kavitha was alone at home. She poured kerosene on her body and set herself ablaze, the officer added.
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Neighbours, along with Venugopal who returned shortly, rushed Kavitha to the Government Kilpauk hospital, but she died on the way.
Ayanavaram police have registered a case of unnatural death and are investigating further. Kavitha's slam book, in which she had written on Thursday morning before going to school, was being examined by the police in the evening.