Date:28/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/28/stories/2008082850470100.htm

New Delhi

Mid-day tragedy at Delhi Public School

Staff Reporter

Mystery shrouds death of Class XI girl in fall from fifth floor of school hostel

– PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

PANIC AT DPS: Anxious parents throng Delhi Public School R.K. Puram in the Capital on Wednesday evening soon after word about the tragic death of 17-year-old Pushpanjali Raj spread.

NEW DELHI: A 17-year-old girl student of Delhi Public School R. K. Puram here fell to her death from the fifth floor of the school hostel on Wednesday under highly mysterious circumstances.

A student of Class XI, Pushpanjali Raj from Jharkhand had joined the school only two months ago.

On Wednesday afternoon, Pushpanjali returned to her hostel after school hours, allegedly locked herself up inside the bathroom, and leapt out of the window. The school authorities rushed her to Holy Angels Hospital nearby where she was declared brought dead.

Though senior police officers said investigations were under way and nothing definite could be said right now, the school authorities maintained that it was a case of suicide.

Alleging that the school authorities were trying to hush up the matter, Pushpanjali’s local guardian, Durgesh Pandey, said it did not appear to be a case of suicide.

“I received a call from the school authorities around 4 p.m. saying that Pushpanjali had fallen from the hostel building and was serious. But when I reached the hospital, they told me she was dead. There were six girls staying in the same room and something must have happened among them,” said Mr. Pandey, adding that Pushpanjali’s father, a senior government official in Jharkhand, was on his way to Delhi now.

Meanwhile, anxious parents of several children staying in the hostel thronged the school premises to meet their wards soon after word about the tragic incident spread. Sunil Rao, who had come to meet his niece, said: “I came to know about the incident when I called up my niece in the afternoon. She had met Pushpanjali in the morning and did not notice anything unusual about her behaviour. My niece was completely shaken by her death.”

Another local guardian, Khurshid Ahmed, who had come to see his niece Madiya, complained that the school authorities were not cooperating with them. “I got a phone call from my brother Bilal Ahmed in Srinagar asking me to go and meet her. I have got the identity card, but still the school authorities are not allowing me inside. The children are shattered by the incident.”