Sharjah: The classmates of a 16-year-old Indian girl at the Sharjah Indian School who died after falling from her seventh floor apartment in Sharjah on Monday are in a state of shock. This is the second time in less than three years that they have lost a classmate in the same manner, school officials told Gulf News on Tuesday.
In 2014, when these girls were in Grade 8, one of their classmates, a girl who was a resident of Ajman, died after falling from a residential building in Sharjah in October. The police suspected suicide.
Exactly a year later in 2015, another girl in Grade 11 at the same school died after falling from her seventh floor apartment in yet another suspected suicide case.
Schools urged to conduct counselling regularly
The latest tragedy, which the police suspect to be suicide, has stunned the class of 32 girls as they sit for their first Grade 10 board exams on Wednesday. School authorities decided to hold a special prayer for the student before the exams begin today.
“We usually have a prayer session before they go to the CBSE exam centre for the board exam. Tomorrow, we will be talking to them about this tragedy and we will also pray for the departed girl’s [soul],” Mini Menon, the school vice-principal, told Gulf News.
On Tuesday, the school faculty held a condolence meeting and a silent prayer. Teachers also spoke to some students consoling them over the phone. “Some parents called us and we have been comforting them.”
‘She kept crying’
One student’s father said his daughter was devastated after reading the news forwarded by someone on WhatsApp.
“She kept crying yesterday. She did not study anything.”
Menon said the entire class had received intensive counselling after the incident in 2014. “We have a group of 12 counsellors handling girls’ and boys’ sections. We assigned a special counsellor for this class after the first child’s death. Group counselling and individual counselling were also provided.”
She said counselling sessions are regularly conducted and the school allocates after-school hours to provide individual counselling for students and to discuss those matters with parents to ensure confidentiality.
“We checked the records to see if [the girl who fell to her death on Monday] had sought individual counselling after the last incident. We couldn’t see her name in the list,” she said, on the possibility of whether the previous case had impacted her. She remembered the girl as a bright student who did well in academics and participated in co-curricular activities.
‘She had prepared well’
“She was a happy child in school. And she had prepared well for the exams and was also granted admission for Grade 11. We know her parents as caring and concerned individuals who make regular visits to the school to enquire about her and her elder brother who is now in Grade 12.”
Menon said the principal, herself and other faculty members visited the bereaved family at their relative’s house on Monday. An official of the Indian Association Sharjah that runs the school said the management helped the family of the victim to complete the legal formalities for the repatriation of her body.
Family members were scheduled to fly back with their daughter’s body to their hometown in the south Indian state of Kerala late on Tuesday.
A Sharjah Police official, meanwhile, said the case of the 16-year-old girl’s death has been transferred to public prosecution.
The girl’s father, who was taken into custody for questioning on Tuesday was released on bail to complete legal formalities for his daughter’s funeral, the official said.
The prosecutors said they would interrogate the family after the funeral.
