A day after violence erupted at a private school in Kallakurichi district over death of a class 12 student at hostel premises on July 13, the Madras high court on Monday ordered a re-postmortem of the girl’s body.
Justice N Sathish Kumar asked the director general of police to set up a special investigation team to identify the rioters and take stern action against them and submit a status report by July 29. He also said in future whenever deaths take place in educational institutions, investigation must be done by CB-CID.
Director general of police Sylendra Babu announced on Sunday that the case has been transferred to the CB-CID.
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“It was total chaos. It was as if there was total lawlessness,” the court said, adding it will monitor the investigation, criticising the violence which he had watched on television on Sunday. “Appropriate criminal action should be taken against the rioters following the SIT probe,” the court said.
Police said at least 2,000 locals, including youngsters, had stormed into the residential school, setting the school buses and police vans on fire, damaging school property after death by suicide of the girl, whose parents, alleged that she was being harassed by the school, a charge denied by the latter.
{{/usCountry}}Police said at least 2,000 locals, including youngsters, had stormed into the residential school, setting the school buses and police vans on fire, damaging school property after death by suicide of the girl, whose parents, alleged that she was being harassed by the school, a charge denied by the latter.
{{/usCountry}}The 17-year-old girl, studying class 12 in a private residential school in Chinnasalem’s Kaniyamoor area in Kallakurichi, was found dead on July 13 on the hostel premises. Kallakurichi is about 260 km from here. The girl, an inmate of a room on the third floor of the hostel, was suspected to have ended her life by jumping to the ground from the top floor. The first postmortem report indicated that she had sustained injuries before her death.
After her death, the family protested outside the school demanding a fair investigation. On Sunday, protestors were seen pelting stones on police in which 52 police officers were injured including the SP of Kallakurichi S Selvakumar and DIG M Pandian.
The court interim orders came in the petition by the deceased student’s father suspecting foul play in her death. The family’s plea was to include a doctor of his choice to participate in the re-postmortem, which was turned down by the court. The judge said the post-mortem should be conducted by a team of three doctors to be appointed by the court and it must be videographed. If he wants, the girl’s father can also be allowed along with his counsel, the judge added.
“The court has all sympathies for the girl’s parents, but for that you can’t put the lives of so many others into risk,” the judge said and directed the counsel to advise them to accept their daughter’s body after re-post-mortem. The court adjourned the hearing to July 29.
“Can the rioters compensate the damages caused to property, both private and government, even if doctors from AIIMS in New Delhi conducted the post-mortem and arrived at a conclusion that there was no foul play,” the judge retorted when petitioner’s counsel said there were material regarding suspicion into the death of the girl, who allegedly died by suicide.
Tamil Nadu is peaceful state, but the rioters had spoiled the name, the judge said and directed police to identify them and take stern action against them. Lambasting social media groups which fomented violence, the judge directed the police to take severe action against those who undertook a parallel trial in social media.
The SP on Monday warned action for sharing videos and posts related to the incident on social media.
Later in the day, the father moved a division bench with the plea to include a doctor of his choice to participate in the re-postmortem. However, justices M Duraiswamy and Sundar Mohan rejected the plea on the ground that they don’t have jurisdiction over criminal matters and said an appeal against single judge Satish Kumar can only be filed in the Supreme Court.
The counsel approached Justice N Sathish Kumar again in the evening with the plea. He prayed the judge to stay the operation of his order, passed in the morning, to enable him to move the Supreme Court. “Are you not satisfied with the order passed in the morning? the judge asked. “Yes, we are not,” the counsel replied.
The court first questioned Sankarasubbu, counsel of the deceased girl’s parents, as to why they had resorted to such protest while they had already moved the court for re-postmortem on July 15.
The counsel submitted that the family are innocents and some other group have indulged in the violence. The court said though they sympathised with the parents they couldn’t agree to their plea of appointing a doctor of their choice for the post-mortem by taking the overall violent situation into account.
“The petitioner should have some faith in the experts and the Court,” the justice said, adding that “immediately after the re-postmortem” the parents have to receive the girl’s body “without any other objections” and peacefully conduct the funeral.
“On seeing the live telecast of the entire incident from various television channels, this Court is of the firm opinion that such a violent protest that erupted yesterday was not mere eruption of sudden provocation, rather, it appears to be a motivated, planned and calculated. There is some force behind it, such incident shook the entire State and the situation also led to show as if the State is lawless,” the justice said in his orders.
“Yesterday’s incident not only led to ransacking the building but also of certificates and original documents of nearly 4,500 other students, which is in fact shocked the conscious of citizen of this country and it has to be probed properly.”
The court also said in cases of such unnatural death reported in educational institutions, the postmortem should be conducted with a team of three Doctors and it should be video graphed. A proper enquiry should be conducted by the education department and only after police should resort to arrests.
“This direction should be followed scrupulously,” the court said. The court also directed the investigating agency to identify the persons, who have formed whatsapp groups and spread false news, which resulted in the rioting. “Besides that, unnecessary parallel investigation being conducted in the Youtube channels should also be blocked…”
The court directed the DGP to identify Youtubers, who had spread false news and conduct a parallel media trial.
(With PTI inputs)