A Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 29
Forty-five students of Sainik School Punglwa, studying in the 11th standard, on Monday afternoon walked all the way with their belongings from their school till Jharnapani, Medziphema to escape beatings from their senior students.
At Jharnapani, some of them were picked up by their parents while the rest hired taxis to escape to the safety of their homes. This unprecedented move by the students traces its origin to a shocking incident that occurred in the intervening hours between February 17 and 18.
According to the accounts of the 11th standard students, during that time they were locked up inside their hostel by their seniors, numbering 46, and beat them up using “iron rods and bamboo sticks.” About 16 of them were “badly beaten”, it was informed.
Apparently, the senior students had decided to bash up their juniors on the ground that latter did not accord them a farewell program. But the juniors, on Monday, insisted that “they have mistreated us in many ways but we kept it amongst us.”
It was informed that the school administration had asked the senior students to leave the school campus by the next morning. Afterwards, a meeting between the parents of both the set of students was held at Kohima in which it was reportedly decided that the suspended students would be allowed to write their exams but not stay inside the campus.
All these while, the junior students have been receiving “threatening calls” from their senior students from “landline numbers, not their personal phones,” it was told. And now the senior students, quite curiously, have been allowed to return to the hostels without the consent of the parents of the junior students.
According to the junior students, their seniors would be arriving tomorrow and stay in the hostels till March 14 next. Thus fearing for their safety, they decided to leave before the arrival of their seniors and walk the long mile.
One of the parents, who was there to pick up her son, told reporters that she was “not happy at all” with the school administration. At the complaint of the junior students, it was informed, the school administration had deputed teachers “as security” from the senior students on the night of February 17 last which turned out to be “not enough”.
It was learnt that a meeting among the parents of both set of students and the school administration has been scheduled on March 2 next at Sainik School, Punglwa. The school administration could not be reached for further information. An FIR on the case has also been lodged at Jalukie police station.
