10-year-old student dies after fall in private school at Ghaziabad

A ten year old boy studying in a private school in Ghaziabad, died under mysterious circumstances after he allegedly slipped and fell on a corridor on the second floor of the school building on Tuesday. The boy, Armaan Sehgal, was a Class IV student at G D Goenka Public School in Indirapuram.

Armaan was rushed to Shanti Gopal Hospital in Ahimsa Khand 2 by school staff where doctors declared him dead on arrival. Doctors at the hospital, however, could not ascertain the cause of death. Later, the postmortem report carried out suggested that he died due to head injuries.

The boy’s family have accused the school authorities of being negligent as the boy’s clothes were wet and there was a possibility that the floor was slippery due to uncleared water.

According to the school management, Armaan collapsed while he was walking on a corridor on the second floor of the school building around 8am. "Armaan had to appear in a unit test on Tuesday. He went outside the classroom in which the examination was being conducted to fetch a pencil box which he had forgotten. While returning to the classroom, he fell down on the corridor and collapsed. A female teacher informed us about the incident. A male teacher immediately picked up the kid and we rushed him to Shanti Gopal Hospital," school principal, Dr Kavita Sharma, told TOI.

The boy’s family said that they were informed of the incident only after the boy was rushed to Shanti Gopal Hospital. They also told mediapersons that the school was trying to hide facts and is not giving a clear picture of the incident.

The police were informed about the incident through a memo from the hospital. An FIR was registered at Indirapuram police station against the school principal and manager on Tuesday evening under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of IPC. "As per the autopsy report, the kid died as a result of head injury. He was late for an examination and was rushing towards the hall when he slipped and fell face down on the floor. However, there was definitely some negligence on the part of the school management," said Indirapuram SHO Sunil Kumar Dubey.