The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday shifted the collector and superintendent of police of Kallakurichi district in the wake of violence following the death of a Class 12 girl student and assured all support to the affected family and the students.
State School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said he and Public Works Department Minister EV Velu consoled the parents of the girl whose body was found in the school hostel on July 13.
"We had assured to stand by the family and ensure justice to her. Also, after interaction with the students and parents we said we will support them in the students' endeavour to pursue education," the minister said.
Chief secretary V Irai Anbu posted Sravan Kumar Jatavath, who was the additional director of agriculture, as collector of Kallakurichi district replacing PN Sridhar who has been shifted to the Chennai-Kanyakumari Industrial Corridor as its project director.
The deputy commissioner of police, Triplicane, Chennai, P Pakalavan has been posted as the new superintendent of police for Kallakurichi replacing S Selvakumar who has been transferred as per an order signed by additional chief secretary K Phanindra Reddy on Tuesday.
Selvakumar has been kept in the vacancy reserve.
"During our inspection of the school premises we collected samples of the students' certificates that were gutted and found that benches and chairs were stolen," Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi told reporters in Chennai.
Indicating that it would take days for the school administration to get the building and infrastructure restored, he said the government was willing to support private organisations in the vicinity if they come forward to run the school in the interest of over 3,000 students.
The minister who made a detailed presentation on the prevailing situation in Kallakurichi to Chief Minister MK Stalin at a virtual meeting chaired by the latter, said many students desire to continue education at the same school.
The minister was also said to have briefed the chief minister that measures should be taken to ensure no learning gap for the students of Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12.
"We will initiate appropriate measures acting upon the advice of the chief minister,” Mahesh Poyyamozhi said in reply to a question during his interaction with the media in Chennai.
He claimed that the girl's mother said her high hopes of seeing her daughter complete education and take up employment had collapsed. "She sought employment to support herself and we said we would convey it to the chief minister and take steps," he said.
"We assured to stand with her family during the crisis...those responsible for the violence will be brought to book," the minister said.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch-CID sleuths commenced the probe into the death of the school girl on Tuesday, even as the Chinnasalem police arrested 113 persons in connection with the arson and vandalising of the school, taking the number of those arrested to 241 so far.
Two school teachers, the school correspondent, principal and treasurer were also among those arrested.
The re-postmortem of the 17-year-old girl began on Tuesday after the Supreme Court rejected the plea of the girl's parents to accommodate a doctor of their choice to be present during the autopsy.
