Pochampalli school set on fire after boy's death

A mob went on the rampage and set on fire a private school in Pochampalli in Krishnagiri district of western Tamil Nadu as a 11th class boy was run over by the school bus right in front of the building on Monday morning.

Ten rooms, including seven classrooms were damaged in the incident, but the 1,300 students escaped without injury. As the angry mob entered the school campus, the police safely escorted the students out of their classrooms. The school correspondent is absconding and a search is on, police said.

"No student is injured. We safely brought them out of the classrooms," Bargur DSP K Gunasekaran told TOI.
Around 8.40am, 16-year-old Suresh Krishnan had reached the entrance of the Anna Arivagam school on the Pochampalli Main Road when one of the school buses hit him head-on.

The boy lay dead in a pool of blood right in front of his school. The bus was just coming out of the campus after dropping about 50 students when the tragedy took place. "The boy suddenly swerved left and the bus driver could not control the vehicle and hit him," said a police official.

Within 10 minutes, the bereaved father Krishnan, who is a tailor in Pochampalli, arrived with his relatives and friends and demanded action against the school authorities. Police reinforcements arrived and the local police personnel tried to pacify him. As the crowds swelled and the situation threatened to go out of control, the police asked the students to leave the campus immediately.

While the students were scampering out, a mob entered the campus and barged into the office of correspondent K Syed. As he was not available, the mob set ablaze his office, computer and records rooms on the ground floor.

The degree certificates of some of the teachers which were kept in the records room were also burnt by the mob.
Then they entered the first storey of the three-storeyed school building and torched seven classrooms. All the tables and chairs in the classrooms were burnt.

Meanwhile, additional police reinforcements descended on the campus and drove away the rioting crowd. Fire fighters too rushed in and battled the blaze for nearly four hours. The police arrested bus driver Muvendran, 30, for rash and negligent driving.

The English-medium school was sought after by parents in the villages in and around Pochampalli and Bargur. Police suspect the mob attacked the school because the correspondent was known to be strict and had refused admission for the children of some of the locally influential people. Police are searching for the miscreants who went on the campus rampage.