Bengal: Headmaster held on charges of abetting minor student's suicide

Kolkata, Sep 2 (IANS) The headmaster of a state-run school in West Bengal's in Darjeeling district was arrested on Saturday on charges abetting the suicide of a minor student of his school.

The arrested headmaster has been identified at Gagendra Gurung, who is accused of putting mental pressure on a 16-year-old student who committed suicide.

Gurung was arrested after the parents of the deceased filed a complaint against him at the Darjeeling Sadar police station.

As per the complaint, the school authorities had reportedly given some lottery tickets to the students for selling them to their relatives and friends outside the school. However, as the victim was unable to sell most of the tickets given to him, he was humiliated by the accused headmaster.

The parents alleged that after the victim handed over the money he got from selling the tickets along with the unsold tickets to the school authorities, the latter accepted the cash but refused to take the unsold tickets.

Instead, the headmaster instructed the student to leave the school and come back only after selling all the tickets.

After that, he went to the school again on Friday with the unsold tickets but he was sent back.

In the complaint, the parents said that after returning home, he locked himself in his room. Late on Friday night, his body, sporting school uniform, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room.

On Saturday morning, the local people reached the school premises and staged a protest. A huge police contingent later reached the spot and arrested the headmaster.

District Superintendent of Police, Praveen Prakash, confirmed the arrest of the accused headmaster with mediapersons.