Date:19/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/19/stories/2008121959330300.htm

Tamil Nadu

School student dies

Special Correspondent

TAMBARAM: An eight-year-old boy, student in a school for children of migrant workers in Sholinganallur, died at a hospital on Wednesday, nearly a week after he was reportedly forced to do sit-ups by his friends and senior students.

Devadhanam was living with his parents Irumaya and Elayamma, hailing from Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, at Parameswaran Nagar in Sholinganallur. He was studying in I Standard at the school run by non-governmental organisation Rural Development Trust close to their house.

He was reported to have made sit-ups on Thursday last week as “instructed” by a couple of senior students and some of his elder friends at the school. He fell unconscious soon and taken to his house. “He was brought back home from the school unconscious. Though he regained consciousness on Friday, he was not fully well. We did not send him to school. As he did not recover even after the weekend, we took him to a private hospital in Kelambakkam on Monday,” said his mother Elayamma, who, along with her husband, is working as a housekeeper at a private university nearby.

She said Devadhanam, the third among her four children, was shifted to a hospital in Egmore the same day, where he died on Wednesday evening. The boy’s body was removed to Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem. The Thoraipakkam police have registered a case following a complaint from his father.

On Thursday, neighbours thronged the house of the boy and assembled outside the school closed down for the day. Some of them were angry, seeking action against those responsible for the incident. Teachers and administrators said such an incident had not taken place on their school premises.

Police said the boy had told them about some other students asking him to do sit-ups and that he had developed high fever two days after the incident. An investigation to establish the circumstances leading to the boy’s death was on and the exact cause of death could be ascertained only on receipt of the postmortem report, police added.