Students at a school in Kerala in southern India protested last week over the death of a 10-year-old pupil who was bitten by a venomous snake lurking in a hole under her desk.
The 150-200 protesting pupils, one with a plastic snake wrapped around his neck, claimed the school had no first aid box and that snakes were common both in the playground and in classrooms, the Press Trust of India reported.
It is alleged the dead pupil’s teacher ignored her cries of pain, and protests from other pupils, and carried on teaching the lesson.
According to reports, Shehala Sherin was only taken to hospital an hour after being bitten and once her leg had turned blue. Classmates allege the teachers at the secondary school dismissed the injury as having been caused by a nail, stone or similar object.
The girl’s parents drove her to four different hospitals but were told there was no anti-venom. She died on the way to a fifth clinic 90km away.
‘The teachers are supposed to educate the children on how to react in such situations,’ Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, vowing strong action against those responsible.
Rahul Gandhi from the Congress party, who represents the local region, said that the school’s ‘crumbling infrastructure requires the urgent attention of the state government’.
Kerala, home to 35 million people and run for decades by communist state governments, has India’s highest literacy rate.
However, high mortality rates from snake bites in rural areas are blamed on a deficiency of healthcare centres and insufficient stocks of anti-venom.