Principal, teacher, education department official arrested.
By Sreekanth A Nair
A four-year-old girl died in Sri Chaitanya School in Dilkushnagar, Hyderabad, after getting stuck in the elevator of the school on Tuesday.
Syeda Xainab Fatima, a nursery student at the school, was going to the third floor from the first floor of the school building along with her teacher and other students. When the lift started moving her leg reportedly slipped through the grill of the elevator and her head got pulled in.
Reports say that she was killed on the spot. The incident happened at around 9.15 a.m.
Police registered a case against the school management for causing death by negligence and the principal, the teacher who accompanied Fatima and an official of the educational department were arrested.
The Hindustan Times quoted a police officer saying, “It is a grill-gate lift and the girl got stuck in the lift when it was moving. We are probing the lapses on part of the school management and whether the school has necessary permissions.â€
The police will also investigate whether the school had a lift operator at all. The school was closed down after the incident.
Parents and relatives of Fatima along with parents of other students staged a protest outside the school. Parents demanded an investigation into why the school is operating from a three-story building and whether they had the permission to build an elevator.
“The child’s father is in Dubai, working hard to earn money for her education. The school abandoned the child…It is the school’s responsibility to take care of our children,” one of the protesting parents said to NDTV.
Police have also sought the assistance of the District Education Officer for investigation. The State Child Rights Commission has also intervened in the issue.