July 2007 a High School in Kusumgram, a small village 150kms outside of Kolkata closed due to fear of a local evil spirit. Toiba High School is adjacent to an old run down house in which the owner had died in the 1960's. The building is now said to be haunted.
After several girls of Toiba High School fainted in quick succession, it was feared the spirit had cast a spell on them. Parents soon stopped their children from attending classes and the Headmaster declared the school shut for several days.
A Sickness Caused by a Spell?
Tuesday 10th July 2007: a student feels dizzy and faints during prayers at a West Bengal School. Later that same day another student also loses consciousness. The following day four more students fainted during lessons and on the Thursday the tally had reached eleven.
Toiba High school is a co educational school, yet all eleven students who fainted were girls. This fact became the centerpiece of an argument that strange things were happening.
Fears that the girls had been cursed soon spread throughout Toiba High. Some said a spell had been placed upon them.
A Haunted House
For years the run down house located adjacent to the school was said to be haunted.
The house, more than a century old, had been run down since the owner died in the 1960's. The sprawling, many roomed building looked quite the part with its overgrown gardens and semi ruined nature.
The two caretakers who live on the premises have stated they have never met an evil spirit.
With parents refusing to send their children to classes, the headmaster was forced to declare a closure on the school. For five days the school was suspended as superstition and rumour spread throughout the community.
After an investigation, it was determined that the girls were mostly suffering from hysteria, generated by the rumour started after the first two girls fainted.
Another School Closes
Three months later in October, Degri Girls High School, Domjur, Howra (also in West Bengal) also closed. This closure was after panic spread throughout the school after many students had reported seeing poltergeist activity.
The first sighting was in Class V with students witnessing chalk and a duster freely levitating at the front of the classroom. Students then saw a tree outside one of the classrooms windows burst into flames (some reported that just the trunk was smouldering, along with much smoke)
The final straw seemed to be when strange disembodied noises were heard throughout the classroom. The students fled the building and teachers could not calm them down. Classes were suspended and the school was closed for the remainder of the day.
Was this also another case of mass hysteria creeping among the students?
A month prior to the Desri Girls School incident one of the students had suddenly died from an illness. Could this have something to do with the events through a reflection of their own mortality and a deression and sorrow following the death?
More Closures
The following month, a Girls School in Chennai (Soundarapany Subbamma Girls Higher Secondary School in New Washermenpet) was closed after reports that a ghost or ghosts were attacking the female students leaving blood stains on their uniforms.
The reports had been going on for a number of weeks, but the attacks grew more frequent, until a majority of parents prevented their children from attending classes. One parent had their daughter exorcised after she had vivid and repeated dreams of ghosts attacking her in the school halls.
Four hundred parents gathered outside the school demanding that the evil spirits to be cleared. Many of the parents presenting their daughters blood stained uniforms as evidence.
In 2011, Lady Haleema Begum Urdu School (Kondhwa near the Western Coast of India) closed after most of the students fled in terror, after several students experienced supernatural events.
A student had been asked to read aloud some of the text written on the blackboard. The student was having some trouble, and when asked he responded the blackboard was blank, nothing was written there. The boy then ran in terror from the room after screaming that an 'egg-shaped' ghost was coming out of the blackboard.
This set off a panic amongst the students causing a closure of the school for the remainder of the day
For these events authorities and school staff have put forward many theories. Student pranks, hysteria, misinterpretation of events and conspiracy against the school.
There have been other schools closed all over the world due to hauntings and reports of paranormal activity. We will look at other countries and regions down the track but for now that is four schools in India that have temporarily closed due to fear and panic.
What do you think?
Mass hysteria?
Hauntings?
Or something else entirely?
