An uneasy calm prevails at Kaniyamoor village on the Salem-Chennai national highway in Kallakurichi district. Only a few shops remain open on the busy highway with police pickets deployed on either side, from Chinnasalem till Kallakurichi, the district headquarters.
The signs of violence are apparent from the highway itself — shattered glass, burnt and blackened classrooms, damaged furniture and torched vehicles, including buses, tractor-trailers and two-wheelers, on the sprawling campus of Sakthi Matriculation Higher Secondary School. The school witnessed a riot on an unprecedented scale on July 17 following the death of a Class XII girl student on the school premises on July 13.
Hailing from a neighbouring district, the girl, who was a hostelite, was found dead on the ground floor. Her room in the hostel was on the third floor, and the initial theory doing the rounds, thanks to the police, was that it was most likely a suicide. The police said a school watchman had found the girl lying motionless on the ground around 5.30 a.m. The body was sent for an autopsy to the Kallakurichi Government Medical College and Hospital.
