At least 20 students were injured, five of them seriously, when a crude bomb of low intensity exploded in their classroom at the Ayatpur Government High School near Kandarpur under the Cuttack Sadar police station on Mondaymorning.
The injured were immediately shifted to the SCB Medical College Hospitalhere, and sources said all the students had suffered temporary deafness while five of them received bruises and burn injuries in their legs below knee.
The Commissionerate police along with a scientific team rushed to the school and started investigation after registering a case. "The investigations are on, and it has not yet been ascertained yet as to how the explosive came into the class," said a police officer.
School Headmistress Pravati Mohanty, when contacted, informed that after the mass prayer, the school had dispersed and the students had gone to their respective classes. "Just five minutes into the first period, we heard a loud noise in the classroom of Class IX students in the first floor of the school building," she said.
"As the panicky students rushed here and there, we rushed to Class IX and saw that some students were lying on the floor writhing in pain. Some students said a bomb in the schoolbag of a student went off as he pulled out books from his bag," the headmistress said, adding that alpins, nails and broken glasses were seen scattered at the explosion site.
Immediately, the classes for the day were suspended and all the students were asked to go home as the police began investigation in the entire school premises.
Shocked over this serious incident taking place in a classroom, the guardians and parents are wondering as to whether it is safe to send their children to schools any more.
In fact, unconfirmed sources said a student of the same class had been earlier pulled up by the school authorities after crackers were recovered from his schoolbag. Meanwhile, the School and Mass Education Department has ordered a departmental inquiry into the incident in which the District Inspector of Schools would conduct the probe and submit a report within seven days.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed his anguish and shock over such an incident inside a classroom and ordered that all the injured students would be given free treatment.