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UNFAIR TREATMENT: Rinky's parents allege that she was beaten with a stick by her school teacher.

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New Delhi: A 15-year-old girl, who slipped into a coma on January 7 after her teacher allegedly beat her up, died at Maharaja Agrasen Hospital in the Capital on Thursday morning. The class-10 student had been in intensive care for the last three months.

While it is still not clear if the beating was the immediate cause of death, the deceased’s inconsolable parents blame the school authorities for their daughter, Rinky Kaushik’s death.

The teenager’s death caused angry residents of East Delhi's Kondli village to storm the school building where Rinky had studied till a few months back. Her family alleges that her teacher Dhirendra Kumar Dinkar had beaten her with a stick in November last year, which ultimately led to her death. But the doctors who had been treating her are not so sure.

“She was unwell for the past 10 days. She had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which is difficult to cure. After she was hit on the head she went into depression. When she was admitted on January 7, her shunt was blocked. Her condition deteriorated because of that. It's difficult to say how much a role the beating played,” CEO Maharaja Agrasen Hospital Dr MS Gupta claims.

But Rinky’s family refuses to buy that argument. They insist she was perfectly okay till the teacher — the son of the owner and Principal of the school — hit her for not attending private tutorials under him.

“She was perfectly fine and never marked absent,” Rinky’s father Naresh Kaushik says.

Rinky's relatives say repeated complaints against Principal Divakar and son Dhirendra have fallen on deaf years. The FIR was registered only in February 2008 but the police have not arrested anyone so far.

Rinky's family claims the duo has not even been called in for questioning, and the school remained operational long after it was de-recognized by the Delhi government.