Snakebite death: Headmaster may get 3-year jail term

 The Juvenile Justice Board will prescribe a penalty and jail term for the headmaster arrested on charges of failing to provide juvenile care that caused the death of a student in snakebite in Katwa.

SNS | Burdwan | October 5, 2024 : The Juvenile Justice Board will prescribe a penalty and jail term for the headmaster arrested on charges of failing to provide juvenile care that caused the death of a student in snakebite in Katwa.

Indrajeet Majhi, a Class V student of Koshigram Union Institute was bitten by a venomous snake at school on 1 October after the third period when he went to take drinking water from the school’s tap. Neither he nor the class teacher could however estimate that it’s a case of snakebite. A teacher administered Indrajeet’s wound with an antiseptic lotion and the boy died in the evening while being shifted to the hospital. The physicians diagnosed it’s a snakebite case.

This irked the locals and the residents stormed into the headmaster’s office-room and assaulted him. The police later arrested the headmaster Purnendu Banerjee on charges of causing death by negligence, endangering life to death (106/1 and 125 B of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), besides, Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection) Act, 2015 that for causing negligence that exposed a minor to death. The Section empowers the Juvenile Justice Board to declare a penalty of imprisonment between 3 years or more, besides a cash fine between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

Indrajeet’s death meanwhile prompted the schools to gear up cleanliness drives across Katwa today. Btindabon Mitra, District Inspector of Schools in East Burdwan said today: “It’s a shocking incident and we’ve asked the school authorities to go for extensive cleanliness drive to prevent repetition of the Koshigram incident.”