Indian police said yesterday they had charged five people with negligence over the deaths of 88 children in a fire that engulfed a primary school in southern Tamil Nadu state.
The arrests of the school's headmistress and four other officials came a day after the fire swept through the third-storey thatched-roofed Saraswati Primary School in Kumbakonam on Friday and as anguished parents held funerals for their dead children.
The children were mostly aged between six and 10 years.
PHOTO: REUTERS
District Administrator J. Radha-krishnan identified the five arrested as Shantha Lakshmi, headmistress of the school, and two other school managers, the school cook and the organizer of the noon meal center.
"They have been charged with gross negligence, leading to deaths and some other sections of the Indian Penal Code," Radhakrishnan said.
The arrests came after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayram called for criminal action against the school management, saying it had not adhered to basic fire safety standards.
Radhakrishnan said 75 children died on the spot while 13 others died of injuries in hospital, bringing the death toll to 88. The dead totalled 43 girls and 45 boys. Three bodies had not been identified.
Authorities said the fire was believed to have started in the school kitchen where cooks were preparing lunch for hundreds of children. Some officials had also said it might have been sparked by an electrical short circuit and an investigation was under way.
Funerals for most of the children were expected to be held yesterday, but some were performed late Friday in Kumbakonam, 350km from Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu.
"Some of the parents needed strong sedatives. They went into shock when they saw the horribly charred bodies of their little ones," said P. Kumar, a doctor at a state-run hospital which treated some victims. "Most of them also can't get away from how terrible the end must have been for their children. Now they will have to steel themselves for the last rites."
Newspapers splashed reports of the fire across their front pages yesterday showing grim pictures of the twisted remains of the children lined up for their parents to identify.
"Kitchen fire swallows school kids," the headline of the The Indian Express newspaper read.
About 20 children were still battling for their lives in hospital.
One injured boy, Ramesh, said from hospital that the fire started in the school kitchen and soon spread.
"Our five teachers fled, leaving us behind," he said, his face contorted in pain.
"My son and daughter were late for school. I forced the guard to unlock the school gate and let them enter ... They would be alive if I had not done this," said a 30-year-old grief-stricken mother who did not want to be identified.
Firefighters said the victims stood no chance of survival as the blazing thatched roof collapsed on the trapped children.
"They were surrounded by fire from all sides. They had no hope from the moment the fire started," a fireman said.
Heaps of bodies, some locked in embrace, were found in the stairwell and classrooms. Tiny shoes and charred school books littered the floor.
Rescue efforts were hampered by the school's practice of bolting the doors after the children arrived, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Reports said some of the children had tried to flee down a narrow stairway. Some suffocated in the stampede.
The chief minister also sus-pended the district education officer on charges of "dereliction of duty" and said survivors must be treated at state expense.
India's parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Abdul Kalam expressed anguish over the tragedy.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS