Students at a far-flung school in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathuadistrict have been exhibiting inexplicably strange behaviour such as rolling onthe floor that has baffled both teachers and parents.
Kewal Krishan, headmaster of a government high school inSitti village of Bani tehsil said: “It all started about a month back. Twostudents in class 1 said they were feeling dizzy. After a while they startedweeping and crying.
“We immediately shifted them out of the classroom andbrought them into the office. Instead of getting any better, they startedrolling on the floor”.
The headmaster said after a few days the same behaviour wasexhibited by three girls of class 9.
“This put us on the alert. We called their parents whosaid two of these girls had suffered similar attacks a few times at home, butthe parents of the third girl were shocked to learn about the behaviour oftheir child.
“On June 13, things started getting out of hand as 20to 25 students, both boys and girls of 9th and 10th class displayed samesymptoms in the classroom. On June 14, the number of students showing samesymptoms of headache, weeping, crying and then rolling on the floor went upto50.
“We reported these incidents to senior officers afterwhich the local SDM visited the school along with a team of doctors from Banihospital. They prescribed some medicines for the affected children, but thisdid not help as the students again showed the same behaviour.
In the meantime, some videos started doing the rounds onlocal Whatsapp groups about the students showing inexplicable symptoms. Thechief educational officer sent a team of doctors who said that they did notfind any medical reasons for the behaviour attributed to the children,”the headmaster said.
He said an administrative officer who came to the villagealso happens to be a doctor.
“He met the affected students. He told us that it wasnot unusual for children to imitate behavioural symptoms of each other. He alsosaid it is quite possible the affected students are not doing well academicallyand they have consciously or subconsciously adopted symptoms as excuses fortheir parents to withdraw them from the school,” the headmaster said.
He said wild rumours are doing the rounds in the villagethat some a “tantric” book has found its way into the village thatmight have been read by these students.
“Unless we have enough medical evidence and remedyavailable for the strange behaviour of our students it is natural for rumourmongers to spread fear among the villagers in such a far-flung area,” theheadmaster said.
He denied that any psychologist had so far visited theschool who attributed the behaviour of the students to mass hysteria.