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Assam: School principal held on charge of abetting student’s suicide

A suicide note she left behind said she decided to take her life after being assaulted by the principal and physically and mentally humiliated in front of other students in the school on Tuesday, on allegations that she had scribbled some allegedly adverse remarks about a teacher.

The principal of a school in Assam’s Dibrugarh district was arrested on Sunday and charged with abetting the suicide of a 13-year-old student whom she allegedly beat up and insulted in front of other girls five days ago. Sister Rency Sebastian, the principal of St Mary’s Higher Secondary School in Naharkatiya, was arrested in Tinsukia district and charged under Sections 306 and 34 of IPC.

“We have arrested Sister Sebastian… in connection with the suicide of Namrata Sharma, a Class VII student in her school. She was in Tinsukia and was brought to Dibrugarh for production before a magistrate,” Dibrugarh SP Gautam Bora told The Indian Express over telephone. Bora said the Class VII schoolgirl was missing since Tuesday afternoon after she left school. Her body was found floating two days later in Burhidehing river in Naharkatiya, which is 470 km from Guwahati.

A suicide note left on the river bank along with Namrata’s school bag read: “My lovely mother and my father I love u very much. Please don’t be angry with me. Aji moi tiffin nai khua, akal eta guava (I have not eaten tiffin today, only a guava). Sr Rancy is very bad. She self me before all my friends,” the suicide note said. She had meant “slapped” by the word “self”, Bora said.

Naharkatiya police station officer in-charge Prasanta Borah said the principal beat up Namrata because she had supposedly scribbled some adverse remarks somewhere about a teacher. “What we have gathered is that she was physically assaulted and also humiliated in front of other students by the principal. She hurt her eye during the assault. Another teacher humiliated her later, which probably prompted her to take such a drastic step,” Borah said.

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