Boy's death in sambar vessel: School MD among 2 arrested

Kurnool: The police have arrested the managing director and correspondent of a private residential school in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, two days after a five-year-old student fell into a cauldron of hot sambar and died of severe burns.

UKG student B Purushottam Reddy lost his balance and fell into a large vessel filled with the vegetable stew when he and other students were jostling for space in a queue for food at the hostel of Vijayaniketan school on Wednesday.

The Panyam police took MD Vijay Kumar Reddy and correspondent Naga Malleswara Reddy into custody on Thursday night. The two have been booked for culpable homicide and few other sections under the Indian Penal Code, said M Chidananda Reddy, Deputy Superintendent of Police of Nandyal. Both have been sent to judicial remand, he said.

The police said the staff immediately failed to notice that the student had fallen into sambar. They pulled him out after hearing his screams, said the DSP. The injured boy was shifted to a local hospital first and later to GGH (expand and where?) where he breathed his last.

Student organisations have alleged that the police are trying to dilute the case at the behest of some politicians. They staged a protest at Panyam and alleged that the school management had hidden the CCTV footage of the dining hall, where the accident took place. "We are demanding the government to take severe action against the management to ensure such incidents don't take place in hostels across the state," said one of the protesters.

The school authorities, however, have claimed that there is no CCTV camera at the dining hall.

According to the Revenue and Education department, the school had been running the hostel without permission. Over 3,000 students are staying in the hostel, they said.

On Friday, a pall of gloom descended on the boy's village, Tippayipalli of Orvakal Mandal. The locals came in large numbers to take part in the last rites of Purushottam.