Jammu Kashmir Last Day School Sleep Deprived Teenager Staff

It was the last day of class before summer vacation at the Government Middle School, Krawa, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban district. Already in holiday mood, the students were given sports kits and allowed to play in the school grounds after their midday meal. However, for one 13-year-old, there was just one thing on his mind: sleep.

The class 7 student had been up late the previous night, studying at the local madrasa. He then had to wake up at 3 am for namaz. On Saturday afternoon, when other students of his school were playing, he went inside the 7th-grade classroom to sleep on the benches, but was told to go back out and play by the two teachers who were sitting there. Later, when the teachers went to the school office to mark their attendance, the boy went into the classroom again, lay his head down on a desk, and quickly fell into a deep slumber.

It was around four hours later that local residents broke open the locks of the school and brought him out. A video of the incident went viral, leading to authorities taking strict action — all staff of the school were suspended.

The rescue came only after the boy woke up at around 7 pm and found himself locked inside the school. His loud calls for help were heard by a local man, who alerted others and they eventually brought him out, taking him back to his parents by around 8.30 pm.

Usually, after school, he would go to the madrasa for his religious education — something that his father insisted on to instil discipline. His two brothers and two sisters, who also study in the same government school, do not attend the madrasa.

The boy, the second of a local businessman’s five children, had been staying at the madrasa hostel for the past two years while also attending the government school during the day. He would attend school from 9.30 am to 3.30 pm before heading to the madrasa and taking up his studies there, which would go on till late in the night. Then he would have to wake up for namaz at 3 am. Unlike him, most other students of the madrasa did not go to government school and would get their sleep during the daytime.

The headmaster of the Krawa school, Abdul Waheed, who was also among those suspended by the Chief Education Officer in connection with the matter, said he had taken up the issue of the boy’s sleep with his parents multiple times.

“I had taken up the matter with his parents a number of times and also informed the Zonal Education Officer of Banihal (the tehsil under which Krawa falls),” Waheed said.

“However, as there had been no positive response from his parents, I called his mother to the school on Saturday and strictly told her to send her ward to one place for studies — either the government school or the madrassa — as inadequate sleep was adversely affecting his studies as well as his health,” the headmaster added. He further said the mother had then promised to withdraw her son from the madrasa.

The family got to know that the boy was locked in the school from local residents, the father said, adding that the madrasa management did not contact them when their son did not arrive there in the evening.

“I have withdrawn my son from the madrasa, and he will now attend classes only at the Government Middle School,” the father said.