Gurgaon: A day after a Class XI student died by suicide after jumping from the third floor of her school building in Faridabad, the school administration on Wednesday denied her family’s allegation that she had been made to stand outside the classroom for four hours as punishment.The 16-year-old student was being counselled over an incident involving food brought from outside the campus, school officials said.The girl jumped from the third-floor terrace of Navodaya Vidya Niketan Senior Secondary School on Ghazipur Road in Dabua Colony around 1.30pm on Tuesday. She was rushed to a nearby private hospital and later shifted to BK Civil Hospital, where doctors declared her dead on arrival.Her father had alleged that a teacher made his daughter stand outside the classroom for around four hours. He said some students told him she had been punished after a dispute over lunch, though she had no role in the argument. The family also claimed she was distressed after being made to stand outside in the sun.The school authorities denied the allegations from the outset. On Wednesday, principal RK Sharma told TOI that the school had given its digital evidence to police and that the CCTV footage showed the teenager had not been punished.“We have provided DVR of the CCTV footage from the school to police and have even shown it to the parents, which shows that she was not punished. Rather, she was being counselled in the vice-principal’s room for more than an hour,” Sharma said.He said the SHO of Dabua police statio, the student’s parents and he had jointly examined the CCTV footage, after which police seized it.According to Sharma, the incident began during lunch break around 11am, when a boy known to the girl handed her a package through the school gate. A girl student saw her receiving it and informed the school authorities. The teenager was then asked about the incident and told that students were not allowed to receive food from outside.Sharma said the girl entered the vice-principal’s room at 1.37am and remained there until 1.19pm for counselling. “The vice-principal had told her that her parents would have to be contacted and the incident would also have to be mentioned to them,” he said.He said the girl later sought permission to go to the washroom to change her sanitary pad. A peon accompanied her, and while the peon went to get a sanitary pad, the girl ran towards the terrace and jumped from the building, Sharma said.A senior police officer said the family had submitted a formal complaint and that the facts were being verified. “However, in the complaint, the parents have not levelled any allegation against anyone and have asked for the postmortem examination of the victim,” the officer said.Police are examining the circumstances that led to the incident and the events inside the school before the student jumped from the building.
