Less than a month after a minor fell to his death at the Jadavpur University campus, Calcutta witnessed yet another in-campus student death with both tragedies bearing eerie resemblances.

A 16-year-old class X student of Silver Point High School in the Kasba area of the southern extent of the city fell, allegedly, from the school’s fourth-floor rooftop and was declared dead on arrival after he was removed to a private hospital in Mukundapur.

“Doctors at ER noted that he had suffered injuries after falling from height. While there was bleeding from ear, nose, and mouth, there were no vitals recorder,” a note from the hospital, confirming that the body was kept at the hospital mortuary waiting to be handed over to the police for post-mortem investigation and other procedural measures, stated.

While family members of the victim blamed school authorities, and named two teachers of the school, for “mentally torturing” the boy it wasn’t clear whether his falling from height was accidental or deliberate.

While the victim’s father alleged that the student was publicly scolded and humiliated in class by his teachers for failing to submit a project work, the victim’s aunt alleged that he was taken to the rooftop by the teachers and was locked up there as punishment. No clarifications were received from school authorities on how the student managed to get to the rooftop or what led to the incident and who was responsible.

The victim’s relatives also questioned why the school decided to move the boy to a hospital some seven kilometers away when there were multiple hospital options within a two-kilometer radius.

“The school authorities initially told us that my son fell from a staircase and was doing okay before I reached the hospital and found he was already gone. What I also find fishy is although he bled from his ears and nose, not a single bone in his body was broken. Is that possible if someone falls from a height of five floors?” the father asked.

A source close to the victim’s father however said that the student was in depression on account of some ongoing issues in his family which led to his studies getting hampered in school.

At the hospital, the relatives kept demanding that the teachers and school officials who were present at the hospital be handed over to them and repeatedly entered into verbal spats with the police when they refused. The relatives also sought Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s intervention in the matter for closure and justice.

Incidentally, the day also marked the anguished parents of the Jadavpur University victim meeting Banerjee at the state secretariat Nabanna where the chief minister reportedly promised strict action against the culprits and naming a local hospital in Nadia, where the student hailed from, after the victim.