Schoolgirl Delivers Baby In Hostel: Odisha Govt Suspends Sevashram School Headmistress

Daringbadi:  A day after a Class VIII tribal girl student delivered a baby at a girls’ hostel of a Sevashram residential high school at Daringbadi in Kandhamal district, the Odisha government on Monday placed the headmistress Radharani Dalei under suspension.

Informing this to the media, Welfare Extension Officer of the Daringbadi block said that the state government has suspended the headmistress on the basis of the recommendation of the district collector Brunda D.

He also said that the district collector has asked the Baliguda sub-collector probe into the incident and submit a report within 10 days.

Following the incident, the district collector had suspended three assistant managers of the Sevashram high school—Asharani Mishra, Naxatrabala Sahu and Jyoshna Nayak and dismissed six staffs of the girls’ hostel including two matrons Soudamini Singh and Manjula Digal, two cook-cum-attendants (CCAs) Rashmtira Pradhan and Sumitra Majhi, warden Lata Pradhan and ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwifery) Saibalini Pradhan from the service.

Briefing the media on Sunday, Kandhamal SP Pratik Singh said the Daringbadi police had registered a case in this connection and arrested a Plus III student Shraban Kumar Pradhan for allegedly raping the minor girl when she had gone to her village Tukulumaha under Daringbadi police limits during vacation a few months back.

The residential school was earlier in news after the headmaster, Aditya Prasad Rath, was arrested in April last year for allegedly sexually abusing the students. In 2006, headmaster Debaraj Sahu of the school was accused of the same.