A blade, a bucket, and a diary: How 2 Bengal schoolgirls plotted the murder of a 7-year-old to escape their hostel days

Early Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after she was dropped off, commotion broke out across the hostel campus. The hostel warden claimed to have found the little girl lying completely unconscious on the bathroom floor.

The child was rushed to a district hospital, but the doctors on duty declared her dead on arrival. From the very beginning, the victim’s family refused to believe it was an accident. They alleged murder and demanded immediate justice.

As the police recovered the body and sent it for a post-mortem examination, investigators under Superintendent of Police (SP) Y Raghuvanshi began reviewing the school’s security arrangements, questioning the warden, and digging into the timeline of that fateful night.

Within 24 hours, the police uncovered a diary belonging to two slightly older but also minor students at the school. Its pages revealed a dark, boiling resentment toward the strict confines of hostel life. The students allegedly felt ‘suffocated’. They were banned from using mobile phones, and the school rules permitted them only a single, five-minute phone call to their families per week. Seeking a desperate escape to what they envisioned as the “colourful world outside,” a plot began to take shape in their minds.

Chilling entries

The diary was filled with chilling entries mapping out their intent. Sources said one of the lines read: “Let’s see how anyone stays in this hostel. If I have to commit a murder for that, I will…”

Late Friday night, the plot turned into reality. The two minor girls woke up and targeted the victim, choosing her because she was ‘young, quiet, and fragile’. Under the pretext of helping the Class 1 student use the washroom in the dark, they led her into the toilet.

The initial investigation reveals that the two girls filled a bucket with water and allegedly forcibly submerged the seven-year-old’s face, holding her under until she stopped struggling.

As per the police, a tiny blade unscrewed from a plastic pencil sharpener was also used to slash the little girl’s hand.

“They wanted to do something to get released from the hostel,” SP Raghuvanshi stated. “They believed doing this would achieve that.”

Before heading to court, the police brought the two accused minor students back to the school bathroom to reconstruct the sequence of the crime.

Armed with the seized diary, the sharpener blade, and the timeline, the police officially produced the two minors before the juvenile court on Monday.