Kallakurichi: Death and rioting in a school

Published : Jul 24, 2022 18:00 IST The death of a 17-year-old schoolgirl in mysterious circumstances in Tamil Nadu’s Kallakurichi district in mid-July has put the spotlight once again on the burning issue of academic pressure on students, while the protests that followed and culminated in arson and looting of the school have raised questions about the motives of the perpetrators. Between July 14 and 16, the girl’s parents and members of her extended family organised more than seven road blockade agitations and many sit-in protests, which the Kallakurichi district administration confirms. After the rioting, the school management released a WhatsApp video in which Shanthi Ravikumar spoke of how the watchman found the body early on July 13 and alerted them, and how she and her husband rushed the girl to Kallakurichi Government Hospital in the school’s emergency van, which Ravikumar drove. They said the district police had been warned by State intelligence authorities that a mass mobilisation and possible agitations were likely to happen near the school on July 17. The mob set fire to school buses, ransacked classrooms, broke windows, vandalised laboratories and, as Shanthi Ravikumar claimed in a WhatsApp video, destroyed “certificates of almost all 2,500 students, besides burning several important documents”.