Day after class 12 student’s death: Worried parents say keep ambulance on standby outside exam centres

As students of Class 12 were arriving at Sheth CL High School at around 2-2:30 pm on Tuesday, only two kilometres away, Amaan’s parents laid their son to rest at a Chartoda kabrastan. Residents of Bhogilal ni Chali at Gomtipur, and relatives of the family had gathered to console the family as Amaan’s parents remained in mourning, refusing to speak with anyone.

Amaan’s father a day after son’s death on Tuesday. (Sohini Ghosh)

Amaan’s uncle Sheikh Mohammad Farooq says tbe 19-year-old student had never had any ailments and that the family is still recovering from the shock of losing their middle-born.

“He had a congenital defect where he was born with only one kidney. He lived for 19 years functioning well with one kidney. As far as I know, he had taken at least one dose of the vaccine. He never got Covid-19. We don’t know what happened that led to this. He had failed to clear his Class 12 exams twice but wanted to study further so he enrolled for the exam a third time. We have lost what we have but we want to appeal to the state government for other children’s sake and their safety that they should at least keep a doctor at the exam centre,” said Farooq. Amaan is survived by his parents, an elder sister and a younger brother, aged 12 years and a school dropout.

Recalling Monday’s sequence of events, Farooq says, “Arif (Amaan’s father) and I work as daily labourers in car accessory shops at Mithakali area. At around 4 pm, Arif received a call saying his son is not well and has been taken to Shardaben General Hospital. I don’t know whether the call was from the school or from someone else, Arif is not very coherent owing to his psychological illness. He left and I followed some 20-25 minutes later. At the hospital he was kept on the ventilator and was declared dead sometime between 4:30 pm and 5 pm. ..”

Javed Khan, whose 17-year-old daughter was appearing for the Statistics subject board exam paper on Tuesday at Sheth CL Hindi Higher Secondary School, said, “I had to keep telling her (my daughter) throughout the night that ‘don’t worry, the moment you feel ill at the centre, get the invigilator or the teacher to call me and I’ll immediately come’. Exams will come and go but life is precious… Students will not come out of the centre if they are feeling uneasy or thirsty or if they need to use the washroom, thinking they will lose time for writing their papers. The least that the authorities can do is keep an ambulance on standby outside the school.”

Another parent Razia Sheikh adds, “My daughter was not ready to appear for the exams today. Amaan was her friend and classmate and we (the two families) are neighbours too. I told her do what you can at the exam and not to stress out. She was saying Amaan tried to leave the exam the moment he felt uneasy but the invigilator suggested Amaan to take some rest and resume.”

At Sheth CL Hindi Higher Secondary School, the exam centre for students from SG Patel High School in Gomtipur, principal Jitendra Singh Chauhan says that Amaan’s death is “unfortunate” and added that as precaution on Tuesday, “we have arranged for cold water outside each exam room” and “have arranged for early entry at 2:30 pm so that students appearing for the exams can settle down in their respective exam rooms.”

At another board examination centre, Government Girls High School in Raikhad, Class 12 teacher PA Sonara says the school has ensured that the heat is bearable for the examinees. “We have kept water pots outside the exam rooms, each room has eight windows with cross ventilation and six fans, with 30 students accommodate in each room.”