Runaway boys teach school a lesson

They were traced to a dera of Radha Soamis at Beas on Monday, and were brought back home by anxious parents camping at the school.

‘‘The boys fled the hostel around 10.30 pm on Sunday,’’ said Zira SDM Jasbir Singh. It was a phone call home by one of them that gave them away.

Purshottam, a student, said: ‘‘We hitched a ride on a trolley that dropped us at Kacharban from where we walked around 25 km to Mallanwala. We boarded a train to Jalandhar and then to Beas.”

Jaswant Singh, whose two sons have been studying at Navodaya for the past four years, grumbled about the poor quality of food.

‘‘We have brought this to the notice of the principal a number of times.’’ He complained they got to know of it from the police; the school did not inform them.

Assistant director S. Selvaraj from the regional office of Jawahar Navodaya Samiti in Chandigarh visited the school and met principal Harjinder Pal Kaur, the students and their parents.

The meeting turned out to be a noisy affair with the parents objecting to the manner in which Selvaraj was questioning the students. ‘‘Why are you trying to pressure them,’’ one of them yelled.

The students were asked to enumerate the problems. Principal Kaur and Selvaraj made a note of the complaints and assured the students no teacher would abuse them or call them for personal work. It was also decided the students will serve food to the teachers to remove doubts about preferential treatment to the latter.

“We take the blame and will try to rectify things,’’ said Maths teacher Paramjit Singh, who has been accused of torture.

Selvaraj said they had tried their best to solve the problems of the students. ‘‘We have decided to be lenient this time, and will not take any action against them,’’ he added.

Principal Kaur said water and electricity shortage is the main complaint. ‘‘Things take time. The students just over-reacted,’’ she remarked.