In a quiet Jaipur home, the voice of nine-year-old Amaiyra still echoes from a WhatsApp recording her mother made a year ago. In the clip, the Class 4 student can be heard sobbing: “I don’t want to go to school… don’t send me.”
Her mother, Shivani Meena, recorded the audio and sent it to her daughter’s class teacher, hoping it would alert the school to something troubling her child.
“I would speak to the class teacher, I spoke to the class coordinator not once, but a number of times over the last one year, but they would either shrug me off or ignore me,” the mother alleged.
A year later, on November 1, the nine-year-old student of Jaipur’s prestigious Neerja Modi School jumped from the fourth floor of the school building. She died on the spot. Her parents allege that repeated complaints of bullying, teasing, and verbal abuse with “sexual connotations” went unaddressed by the school authorities.
Her husband, Vijay Meena, recalled a Parent-Teacher Meeting (PTM) where, according to him, a group of children signalled towards Amaiyra and another boy. She hid behind Vijay, embarrassed. Vijay brought up the issue at the PTM.
“The teacher told me this is a coed school and Amaiyra must learn to talk to all children, even the boys. I told the teacher that ‘it is my daughter’s choice if she does not want to talk to boys,'” Vijay said.
CCTV footage from the classroom, reviewed by investigators, shows Amaiyra walking up to her teacher twice in the minutes before she climbed the railing and jumped. What she said is not known because, despite CBSE guidelines mandating audio recording in classroom surveillance, the footage has no sound.
“We want answers. We want to know from the school: with over 5,000 children and a six-floor building, how did they get permission to build the extra floors without having a grill or a net for safety? It’s the most basic thing. How can you have open floors with so many children around? How come there is no audio available in the CCTV that should be there as per CBSE guidelines? In fact, 15 days of CCTV footage should be available. It’s a prestigious school of Jaipur. They charge substantial fees, but where is the accountability?” said Amaiyra’s uncle, Sahil.
Jaipur’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rajarshi Raj Verma, told NDTV that the police have taken the parents’ statements and are verifying all details.
“We are taking everything on record and verifying. The parents were in a state of shock and unable to speak, but now whatever their concerns, we will take them on record and verify and investigate,” he said.
District Education Officer (Primary) Ramniwas Sharma confirmed that his department will record the parents’ statements in the next two to three days in the presence of the police.
As far as the use of “bad words” is concerned, the officer said it had not come to his notice, but some children mentioned that she did not want to go to school that day, and some other students had complained about the use of bad words.
The school authorities have so far not commented on the matter.