Bantala: Bizarre it may seem, but as many as 17 girl students of Cheliapada Natsahi Upgraded Upper Primary School under Angul police limits have been fainting inside a classroom for mysterious reasons for the past one month. According to reports, all the students are of Class IV, V, VI and VII.
While the school authorities are yet to ascertain the reason behind such bizarre incident, it has sparked fear and tension among the guardians. Even as a doctor has been consulted to check on the health conditions of the students, locals assume other “unnatural” reasons are responsible for the strange incident.
It is said that as many as 10-17 students faint one after another. This has augmented the responsibilities of the teachers, who now have to keep a watch on the students all the time. As soon as a student faints, they sprinkle water and press their head to make them to consciousness.
“No sooner the students enter the classroom, they faint one after another. We have to sprinkle water on them to bring them back to conscious,” said Bidyutlata Pal, a school teacher.
As usual, the students fainted during class hours Monday too. Terrified, the teachers called their parents and sent the students back home.
According to the teachers, a Class IV student Madhusmita Sahu fainted for the first time a month back. Since then, the weird incident has been recurring every day in the school.
Fearing for their lives, their parents got the students’ heal check-up done at different hospitals in the district. All tests confirmed the students are fine and do not have any health issue. Assuming they were weak due to lack of nutrients, doctors had even prescribed vitamin tablets for them.
As no one is able to ascertain the reasons behind the bizarre happening, locals suspect someone of committing sorcery to the children inside the classroom. They have demanded a high-level probe into the incident.
When contacted, the school headmaster Prabhat Kumar Nath said the incident has been happening since 2015. Only one student used to faint in 2015, but it soon increased to six in 2016 and now 17 of them faint every day. We have informed the block education officer and district project coordinator about it. PNN
