Police in Odisha’s tribal-dominated Koraput district arrested two staff members of a government-run residential school for tribal children after they came to know that an inmate, a 13-year-old Class VI student, delivered a baby in the school hostel.
The incident had taken place on February 4 in the Umuri Ashram School near Jaypore town. The two, the headmaster of the school K C Bramha and the lady superintendent of the hostel Sabita Guru, were picked up by the police on Sunday after the matter came to the light and the district administration lodged a complaint against both in the Jaypore Sadar police station. An investigation into the incident is on.
The Koraput district administration has also suspended school staff for negligence in their duties and trying to hush up the matter. Immediately after the minor girl, daughter of a poor daily wager in a village under Semiliguada block of the district, delivered the baby, the school authorities had packed her off to her village with the newborn child without informing the matter either to the police or to the higher authorities in the district administration.
The preliminary police investigation has revealed that the girl had been raped by a minor boy in her village during a vacation last year.
The development has left the state government department in charge of tribal welfare red faced because this is for the second time such an incident has taken place in a government-run residential school for tribal children within a short span of just a fortnight.
On January 23, a Class X girl student of a similar Ashram School located at Lingagada under G Udaigiri block of another tribal-dominated district of Kandhamal had delivered a baby in the school hostel. The incident had prompted the district administration to suspend headmaster of the school besides sacking three other staff members.
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