The Kovai Kalaimagal College of Arts and Science, where Logeswari, a student, died after an unauthorised disaster preparedness drill went awry on Thursday, had taken at face value the claims of Arumugam, a youth posing as a training officer of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
In his letter (dated May 15, 2017, but received on November 11, 2017) to the institution on a forged letterhead of the NDMA, Arumugam claimed that the Central government was conducting awareness programmes on disaster management in colleges across the country. The letter contained striking grammatical errors. But the college failed to check with Bharathiar University — to which it is affiliated — if the government was indeed conducting such programmes. It didn’t verify Arumugam’s credentials either. He had sent the letter via Gmail, whereas official government emails normally come from the domain ‘.nic.in’.
College principal N. Mala admitted that the institution had engaged Arumugam’s services merely based on his letter.
According to faculty members, on Thursday, Arumugam conducted a “theory session” for two hours — from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. — for around 450 undergraduate students, and after lunch, began the “practical demonstrations”.
Of the 450 students, only 220 volunteered for the practical session. Only 15 — 20 students took part in the rope-climbing session, as there was not enough time for all the students to try. This group of students then moved to the jumping session, where two of them successfully jumped from the second floor balcony on to the nets.
The third in line was Ms. Logeswari, who appeared reluctant, and was caught off-guard as she was pushed down by Arumugam.
Past instance
Ms. Mala said that after the girl hit the sunshade on the first floor and landed on the net, she got up, asked for water and requested her friends to hold her hand. A few minutes later, she fell unconscious, never to recover.
Inquiries revealed that in 2016, Arumugam had approached the GVG College of Arts and Science at Udumalpet to conduct a similar training exercise. Claiming to have received funds from the government, he had sought permission to conduct a demonstration.
“When he arrived at the college, the principal asked for his ID card. He said he didn’t have one. Since he was a person with physical disability, the principal asked him to just give a talk,” said a staff member.
When asked about Thursday’s ill-fated incident, Jayapaul, a Tahsildar attached to the Coimbatore District Disaster Management Authority, said that at present, there was no mechanism for grant of permission for conducting mock drills on disaster management in educational institutions.
( With inputs from R. Arivanantham and M. Soundariya Preetha in Coimbatore )
