Ragging’: Sainik School student tries to kill self

Posted: Thursday , Jun 11, 2009 at 0047 hrs IST

With the aim of becoming an Army officer, Rohit Murmu had got admission to the Sainik School in Jhumri Telaiya two years ago. Today, the 14-year-old class VIII student is lying in Sadar Hospital in his hometown Deoghar after slashing his wrists in a case of attempted suicide. His doctors say he out of danger now.
Rohit says he tried to commit suicide after being repeatedly ragged by senior students. “I was fed up. They had tortured me so much that I felt it was better to die than to return to school to face them once again,” he said. He had come home for the summer vacation on May 4 and was to return on June 27.
“On Monday night, he cut the veins of his right hand with a blade. We found him lying in a pool of blood and rushed him to hospital,” said Niru Hansda, Rohit’s mother. His father Manohar Murmu, a railway employee posted at Deoghar’s Jasidih railway station, said Rohit had repeatedly complained about ragging in school. “The senior students used to compel him to wash their clothes and press them. Whenever he defied them, they beat him up,” alleged Murmu.
School’s headmaster Lt Col B S Ghorpade denied receiving a complaint from Rohit. “We are shocked to hear of his case. We are going to inquire into his complaint,” he said. The school is one of 23 educational institutions run by Delhi-based Sainik School Society.