17 injured students fail to appear in Madhyamik

SNS, Siliguri, 4 March 2014: The 17 students who were seriously injured in a tractor accident yesterday failed to appear for their Madhyamik exam today.

Around 70 Madhyamik examinees of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hindi High School at Looksan Tea Estate in Nagrakata, Jalpaiguri, were returning home after the Mathematics paper yesterday, when the tractor met with an accident.

The sixteen 16 girls and a boy who were injured are undergoing treatment in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH). They said today that they are eager to complete all their Madhyamik examination.

The NBMCH Superintendant, Amarendra Nath Sarkar, said the students are seriously injured and that they have been kept in separate rooms, away from the other patients.

“Doctors visited them and found out that the students were unfit to write their exam papers,” he said.

The Looksan Tea Estate manager and leaders and workers of tea associations today visited the students in the hospital. The regional officer of North Bengal, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBSE), Pradip Biswas, said: “We had thought of making special arrangements for the injured students to write their papers by providing writers, but the doctors and teachers of the school concerned declared them unfit for the exam.”

“I am not feeling good about this. I had prepared so much for the exams,” Sudip Xalxo, said from his hospital bed. The students said they will request Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee to look into their case.

Mr Biswas, meanwhile, said it is upto the higher authorities of the WBBSE to decide if these students are to be given a chance to appear in the exams for the remaining subjects later.