M. VASANTHAPIRIYA, the 13-year-old girl who attempted suicide after being accused of stealing a teacher’s iPhone 6, was a quiet and timid girl, said her former teacher.

The former teacher, who taught Vasanthapiriya a few years ago, said the teen never had disciplinary problems.

“There was no issue with the girl. She was quiet. Timid, even.

“I remember her loving father. He sent her to school and picked her up after school.

“I don’t think there were issues with her discipline, but of course, I don’t know what had happened between her and her teacher over the smartphone,” he told reporters outside Vasanthapiriya’s family home.

The SMK Methodist Nibong Tebal Form Two student, the youngest of four siblings, died this morning at Seberang Jaya Hospital after being in a coma for a week.

After being accused of stealing the iPhone last Wednesday, Vasanthapiriya was allegedly reprimanded by her teacher in front of other students.

She was allegedly locked in a room in the teachers’ office for almost five hours. Later that evening, the teacher and her husband took Vasanthapiriya home to confront the girl’s parents.

As her parents were talking to the teacher, Vasanthapiriya hanged herself in her bedroom.

Her father, Muniandy Ratnam, said his eldest daughter suspected something was wrong when Vasanthapiriya failed to answer when called repeatedly.

The girl’s sister found her hanging from a shawl tied to a pipe after unlocking the bedroom door. She was alive, but unconscious.

The former teacher, who declined to be named, said taking a student home was not part of the standard operating procedure (SOP) for teachers.

“I don’t know why they didn’t follow the SOP. The husband is also a teacher himself, I heard.

“Even in cases where students are sick or injured, teachers are not to remove them from the school grounds. They are to call the parents to come to the school.

“Only with the consent of their parents can students be taken out of the school.”

Speaking from his own experience as a teacher, he said if there were disciplinary issues, the teacher in charge of discipline or the principal must be referred to.

He said in the case of Vasanthapiriya, who attended the afternoon school session, the afternoon-session supervisor should have been referred to.

“The woman discipline teacher, since a female student is involved, would be the one to investigate the alleged theft or disciplinary issue.

“The accusing teacher should not be handling the case. Even if it so happens that the same person is the discipline teacher, she must remove herself from the case and let another teacher, such as the afternoon-session supervisor, handle it.”

He said if the matter required the parents being called, the principal would be consulted.

He added that the supervisor would have to discuss with the principal about whether the school could ask to meet the parents.

“If the principal agrees, then the parents can be called for a meeting. Then, the teacher involved in the case can confront the parents, and ask anything he or she wants.

“If the parents allow the teacher to come to their home, then the teacher can do so, with the supervisor.

“But, was permission given to the teacher and her husband to take the girl to her home?” he said, adding that as a teacher from another school, the husband should have stayed out of it.

Although he was not present when the incident took place, the former teacher said Vasanthapiriya might have felt upset with the whole episode.

“I think she could not stand the humiliation. You know, she was a teenager.

“Word would have spread very fast among her schoolmates that she was accused of stealing the teacher’s phone.

“And, she lived in a kampung. Her teacher brought her home, and that would have attracted the attention of neighbours.

“People would have known that something had happened.”

Police and the Penang Education Department began investigating the incident after Vasanthapiriya’s uncle reported her suicide attempt.

The teacher involved has since been posted to a desk job at the southern Seberang Prai district education office, pending investigations. – February 1, 2018.