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 Monday morning.
The injured were immediately shifted to the SCB Medical College Hospital here, 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 all pins, nails and broken glasses were seen scattered at the explosion site.