Caught playing truant, a Class XI student on Monday stabbed the headmaster at a government-aided school in Tirupattur, Vellore district, leaving him with abdominal injuries that required emergency surgery.
The 16-year-old boy attacked R Babu, 53, with a sharp kitchen knife, which he appeared to have carried to school, in the stomach and head around noon before fleeing the spot. He surrendered to the Tirupattur town police around 8pm.
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Babu on Monday summoned the students to a ground floor room and asked them to prepare for a practical examination. But the boy, a vocational student whose class teacher had gone to Vellore for training, and four classmates did not join the others. "The headmaster spotted the boys in a classroom on the first floor," the officer said. "His classmates bolted but the boy tried to hide and the headmaster caught him."
Babu tried to beat him, but the boy pulled out a knife and stabbed him.
2nd attack on headmaster by a student, says teacher
A teacher who witnessed the boy escape told TOI that he leaped onto a laboratory building abutting his classroom. "The boy had been constantly getting into trouble at school," the teacher said. Teachers and students helped take the headmaster to a government hospital nearby where doctors gave him emergency treatment before referring him to Sri Narayani Hospital in Sripuram, Vellore.
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Doctors at the Vellore hospital told police that the knife had pierced and damaged Babu's intestines. They immediately performed a surgery on the headmaster and later said he was out of danger. The teacher said it was the second attack on the headmaster by a student of the school. "Another troublemaker tried to hack him to death two years ago," he said. "Babu is a chemistry teacher and has been with the school for the past 27 years. He is strict with and made students stay back till 7pm ahead of board examinations."
Educationists and teachers said the attack on Monday was alarming, but called for reforms to prevent such episodes. "Incidents like these are a cause for concern," said S Rajesh Kanna, district president of Tamil Nadu Postgraduate Teachers' Association. "Academic and performance-based pressure can sometimes affect the student-teacher relationship and spiral out of control."
"This has resulted in a growing number of instances of students attacking teachers or committing suicide," he said.