Sainik School student dies under mysterious circumstances

By A Staff Reporter

IMPHAL | Aug 1

A Sainik School student found death inside pond near Pukhao Khabam playground yesterday.

The deceased is identified as Wangkhem Imocha Meitei (16) son of W. Khogen Meitei of Nongren Awang Leikai of Lamlai police station. He is studying in Class 9 at Sainik School, Pangei.

A source said Imocha went for a friendly football match at Pukhao Khabam ground with 18 students including him along with five school teachers and a coach from Pukhao. After the match the students went at a nearby pond to take bath at the time of dusk. When teachers counted the number of students Imocha was missing. After a search he was found dead inside the pond.

It is said that the pond was not deep enough.

After Imocha was taken to the community health centre of Sagolmang, the doctors at the said he was dead when he was taken to the centre. The dead body was referred to Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Science morgue by CMC, Sagolmang.

Long after the dead body was taken to JNIMS morgue, school teacher informed the victim’s family at around 7.30 pm yesterday.

An uncle of the deceased said death of Imocha is mysterious as the deceased has a wound on his left forearm near the elbow which was bleeding.

A huge number of victim’s family and people from his localities and the school’s parents association came to meet the school authority for clarification of the incident. They were blocked at Biramangol College by police personnel after negotiation they were allowed to meet school authority but they have to reach school by foot.

When they reached Sainik School five of them were allowed to meet the school authority. After a long talk between the victim’s family including parents association and school authority they came out from the school campus.

Speaking to the media persons, M. Ramesh Singh form Nongpok Kakching who was also in the talk said they come to school in order to talk about the suspicious incident happened yesterday.

When victim’s family asked the school authority what initiatives can be taken from the side of school authority. As the response was not satisfied, victim’s family proposed the school authority to suspend or dismiss those teachers who accompanied the students and to investigate jointly on the incident.

They demanded that until the post-mortem report of Imocha is out and during the investigation the teachers who were involved must be in police custody. If the report says it was a murder then the teachers must be punished, Ramesh demanded.

Sources said the football match was held at Pukhao and the teachers accompanying the football team discovered that Imocha was missing from the team when they reached the house of the coach of the football team. The distance between the school and football ground is 14 kms.

The team went to the house of the coach to have dinner.

Relatives of the deceased asked the Sainik School authority whether the authority gave the permission to the team to participate in the match.

The deceased student was to be part of a football team of Sainik School to participate in a football match in Jammu later this month.