Odisha HC orders ex gratia of ₹5 lakh to family of girl who died after being forced to walk home

|HT|

The Orissa high court has asked the state government to pay ₹5 lakh as compensation to the family of a 7-year-old tribal girl who died after being forced to walk back home. The decision comes eleven years after the tribal girl staying in a state-run hostel of Kandamal district died after she was asked to walk back home despite her being unwell.

The division bench of chief justice S Murlidhar and justice RK Patnaik asked the state government to pay ₹5 lakh to Bichhanda Mallick, a farmer of Ginaninda village under Khajuripada block of Kandhamal district within next 8 weeks as compensation for the death of his daughter Jasmin Mallick. Mallick’s lawyer and human rights activist Prabir Kumar Das said on the night of 21 April 2011, Jasmin staying in the sevashram hostel of Bilabadi grampamchayat ran high fever. Instead of taking her to a nearby health centre the next day, hostel warden Brahmakumar Behera asked her to walk back to her village Ginaninda, 5 km from the hostel along with 4 minor girls. “Jasmin died on the road and later her body was taken to her home in a passer-by vehicle. After her death, the district social welfare officer inquired into the case and found the school headmaster was at fault. However, the district administration announced a compensation of ₹50000. A year later, her father Bichhanda filed a case in High Court,” said local sarpanch Mrutyunjay Kanhar.

Bichhanda, who is a marginal farmer, could not be contacted as there is no mobile network in his village.

The sevashram schools are state-run residential schools that provide up to secondary education to tribal boys and girls.

These hostels were however mired in controversies with cases of tribal girls in the hostel committing suicide to delivering babies. In 2016, one such hostel in Kalahandi district was found to have a tantrik treating the ailing students. (Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)