Teacher mixes pesticide in drinking water: 11 students fall ill in Telangana; accused did it to frame colleagues

BHUPALAPALLY: In a shocking incident, a teacher in a residential school in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district allegedly mixed pesticide in the drinking water on Friday out of spite against two other teachers he had rivalries with.The matter came to light when 11 students of Urban Residential School had to be admitted to a govt hospital after drinking contaminated water. The students were discharged after a 24-hour observation, said the hospital superintendent.According to police, science teacher Rajender allegedly mixed the pesticide in the drinking water, possibly to frame the other two teachers, Venu and Suryaprakash, as he wanted to establish his dominance in the school affairs.

The accused teacher hid the bottle of pesticide under a student's bedsheet after emptying its content in a water container. When students confronted him, he warned them not to tell anyone about the bottle.

He also poured a few drops of the pesticide on the bedsheets. To avoid suspicion on him, Rajender, too, drank the contaminated water and got admitted to hospital.On Saturday morning, however, the students who had taken ill spilled the beans on the personal rivalry among the three teachers, to the higher authorities in school.

District collector Rahul Sharma suspended the three teachers and cook Rajeshwari. Local MLA Gandra Satyanarayana Rao, collector Sharma and SP Kiran Kare visited the hospital and the school. The district collector warned the principal and teachers that any activity that harmed the students would be dealt with seriously and the guilty would be removed from service. He directed the district education authorities to conduct surprise checks along with police to keep a tab on schools, so that such incidents did not recur.