Abhishek Tyagi lay sprawled on the ground with two bullet wounds in his chest and one in the forehead, after he was shot by two of his classmates on Tuesday.
While Vice-Principal Anita Solanki and the staff rushed Abhishek to a nearby hospital, the killer schoolboys whose identities are now being withheld here because they are juveniles, were caught.
Teachers caught the first schoolboy and locked him in a classroom. The second boy, who had already left the class and was sitting in the bus, was also subsequently nabbed and police and school chairperson Satyavir Yadav informed.
The school had just been  over and most children were already in buses ready to go home.
Fourteen-year-old Abhishek too was on his way out and had climbed down the stairs to the ground floor when he was attacked.
The day after, the clues to what may have led to the horrific attack lay scattered around in the three-floored eerily silent school that is closed for two days.
‘Ziddi boy’
On a ground floor classroom lay an unclaimed bag belonging to the first boy who shot Abhishek. It was stuffed with books and had messages like “Bad Boy” and “Ziddi (stubborn) Boy” scrawled in blue ball pen ink.
But the school authorities had obviously not woken up to the “bad boy” and what he intended to do, despite taking other precautions.
According to Solanki, Abhishek was on his way to a classroom for compulsory attendance to ensure that all children board the right bus. But the killer boys did not go for their attendance and waited near the staircase to lay siege knowing very well that other children might be in the bus.
Police add that the conspiracy had been hatched four days earlier. The first boy stole his father’s licensed revolver on Tuesday morning and smuggled it into school after hiding it in his socks. He then went to first floor toilet and hid it near a window, taking it out just minutes before the incident.
The school is planning to deploy more security guards. And the silence of death has fallen upon Abhishek's home.