A five-year-old boy fell off a balcony of the green room in an auditorium where schoolkids had been practicing for the school's annual function, the Euro School in Wakad went ahead with its annual day, angering a section of parents.
Even as the injured student, Arnav Buch, is admitted to pediatric intensive care unit at Ruby Hall Clinic with severe head injuries and is on ventilator support, other parents visited the school and demanded to know if there was any negligence on part of school staff and even demanded that the school form a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) for communication with parents.
School principal Preeti Desai confirmed the accident and said the school was investigating all possibilities to see if any negligence could have led to accident. "We had rushed the student to AIMS hospital in Aundh within five minutes and later to Ruby Hall Clinic since it has advanced facilities. We didn't cancel the school function since cancellation would be difficult to explain to other students though after the event I made an announcement and we observed a prayer for the student," she said.
The incident took place on February 14 during dress rehearsals at Pandit Bhimsen Joshi Rang Mandir in Aundh, a day prior to the school function.
While some of the school children were in the basement, Buch was in the first floor green room. "The children were going down in a single line when Arnav probably leaned on a curtain and fell on a window that opened and he fell down," said Desai.
A parent on condition of anonymity told dna that a note was circulating on day of school function about the incident. "We wanted to ban the show and asked school principal who assured us that child was out of danger. The next day we went to school as it doesn't even have a PTA where we can discuss such issues. All parents had met for first time during annual event and we all feared that if similar incidents take place with our kids, how do we protest as a group?"
approached the teachers and Principal inquiry about it. The principal had assured He added that parents demanded that school take action against the person who is responsible of negligence and if any inquiry have done about how the child had fallen.
Meanwhile more serious allegation was made by Sadashiv Laigude, assistant administration in-charge of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi Rangamandir. He said, "The hall was booked by school for Friday, Saturday and Tuesday (Tomorrow) between 9 am to 11 am. Prior to incident, on several occasion had warned the school that there are many children on stage, so they should have volunteers to look after them. We had also suggested them to take additional room for which they had to pay Rs 500 but they denied."Ajay Kadam inspector In-charge of Chaturshrugi police station said, "The incident have been reported in our station diary on Friday night around 10 pm. When we received a call from the Aundh based hospital. At present the parent are not in the conduction to speak."
When dna called Arnav's father, he refused to speak. A doctor in ICU said the child had fallen from 18 to 20 feet and suffered severe traumatic brain injuries and kept on ventilator support.
d_chaitraly@dnaindia.net
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