Parents protest Delhi school reopening

Angry parents staged a violent protest outside a Delhi government school, where five girls were killed in a stampede on September 9, when it reopened for the first time after the incident on Tuesday.

The families of the victims and others gathered outside the government school at Khajuri Khas in northeast Delhi around 7.30 am and demanded a CBI probe into the incident and a compensation of Rs5,00,000. The Delhi government has offered a compensation of Rs1,00,000. The protesters pelted stones at police, torched a DTC bus and blocked traffic on the Delhi-Ghaziabad highway. The police responded with teargas and baton charged the protesters.

Five students were killed and 30 others injured in the stampede after some boys misbehaved with a group of girls on the stairway and spread rumours of current passing through water that had collected in the school compound from that morning's rain.

According to sources, the protesters were disappointed with the delay in punishing the school authorities. The sources said the state government had suspended three senior functionaries, holding them guilty for the stampede. The principal will also be asked to leave.