Girl attempts to slit her wrist in Kolkata school, saved

Kolkata, June 26 (IANS) Five days after the death of a class 10 student, another student in a prominent south Kolkata school attempted suicide by slitting her wrist but was saved by the prompt action of school authorities, police said on Wednesday.

"We heard about the incident of a school student injuring herself. But there has been no formal complaint as the matter was solved by the school authorities," a senior Kolkata Police officer said.

He said officers of the Gariahat police station spoke to the school authorities in Ballygunge, whose prompt action save the student's life.

In a stark reminder of last week's incident, the school girl locked herself in the washroom and slashed her wrist with a blade on Tuesday.

"During the last period, students raised an alarm that a girl had injured herself by locking herself in the washroom. I rushed and rescued her. The cut wasn't very deep, so I washed it with cold water and administered first aid," the Vice Principal of the school said.

Seeing her state of mind, the teachers felt that the student needed her parents' attention and they should keep a tab on their ward. The injury wasn't serious, but the girl was in a state of trauma.

"After speaking to some students I found it is a common thing for them to make minor slits on wrists and put WhatsApp status," the Vice Principal added.

The school teachers got more worried after they recovered loose sharpener blades from a class 7 student's bag on Wednesday.

A teenage girl was on June 21 found dead in the washroom of a school in south Kolkata's Ranikuthi with her wrist slit and a plastic packet tied around her face. A suicide note was also recovered.

She was later declared brought dead at a city hospital.

"The tendency of deliberate self-harm has increased a lot these days. The expression of sadness is gradually changing and over the past years it has often equated itself with deliberate self-harm," Sabyasachi Mitra, a city-based psychologist said.