Girl attempts suicide at janata durbar, secures admission

Frustration and hopelessness drove a 21-year-old physically challenged girl to attempt suicide at chief minister Nitish Kumar's janata durbar on Monday.

Frustration and hopelessness drove a 21-year-old physically challenged girl to attempt suicide at chief minister Nitish Kumar's janata durbar on Monday.

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Janata durbar is a regular affair in which the CM personally interacts with people, hears their grievances and directs the officers concerned to attend to their complaints promptly.

Sarojini Kumari, a native of Barh area of Patna, had come to the janata durbar with the hope of getting help for admission to a technical course, preferably teachersf training, to support the family of seven, including aged parents and four siblings.

However, as she failed to get a convincing and affirmative reply to her plea, she cut her right wrist with a blade in front of the CM. The sudden development took everyone present there, including Kumar, by surprise and there was a sense of disbelief for a moment.

Doctors on standby came rushing as officials called in to offer first aid to the girl. Later, Kumar asked Patna district magistrate Sanjay Kumar to arrange Sarojini's admission to any of the girls' polytechnics for computer training. Kumar also volunteered to pay the course fee of the girl from his salary, if required.

A BA part III student of N H College, Barh, Sarojini said she was frustrated with the repeated denial of admission to teachers’ training course despite filling up forms along with the stipulated fee. “I need a job to support my family. It is not possible without any technical degree like teachers’ training. Somehow, I managed to deposit the fee for the admission test. But it has become difficult for me to arrange the money, which forced me to come to the janata durbar,” she said.

After treatment by doctors camping on the spot, deputy development commissioner of Patna, Seema Tripathi, took Sarojini to her office to complete the formalities for her admission to women’s polytechnic.