Ranchi, Feb. 6: Police, who have launched a murder investigation after yesterday's gruesome death of a Class VII boy on the campus of Sapphire International School, detained as many as five teachers for questioning, at least one of whom was of "particular interest" because of some articles that were found in his hostel room.

At the hostel room of art teacher Durbanand Jana, who was the first to spot Binay Kumar Mahto (not Vinay as reported today) lying with his face bludgeoned on the porch of their teachers' hostel around 1.30am yesterday, police have come across several pieces of paper stuck on the wall with "fail" written on them.

Police have also recovered a photograph of a boy that had been sketched upon to make the subject look like a girl, and an underwear which was clearly several sizes smaller than what the teacher would use.

But, Durbanand, police sources told this correspondent, had explanations for all. The posters and the sketches on the photograph were expressions of his "creativity", the art teacher said, while the under-sized underwear was bought by his wife by mistake.

Later, asked about the art teacher, principal Dhruba Das said he had been hired a little over a year back. "We hired him as he was qualified for the job. We check backgrounds of each candidate we hire on the basis of the claims made in their resume," he said at a press conference addressed by the school chairman Rohit Sahu.

Sahu admitted security lapses by the school and accepted moral responsibility for the death of the 12-year-old boy.

"As much as for the child's parents, it is painful and shocking for us too. But having said that, I am not running away from anything. As this unfortunate incident happened on our campus, and for whatever reasons that are yet to be known, we take moral responsibility," Sahu said.

This morning, Ranchi SSP Kuldeep Dwivedi, SP Kishore Kaushal and Hatia DSP Prashant Anand visited the campus at Hardag, 25km from here. They toured various areas of the school, including the teachers' hostel where Binay was found, and the boys' hostel where Binay was staying.

The SSP asked Das to furnish Binay's medical records and also sought details of all those who were staying at the teachers' hostel where Binay was found, and those staying at the hostel where Binay used to stay.

"We are waiting for forensic and post-mortem reports," said SP Kaushal, refusing to divulge any details on the ongoing investigations.

As many as 15 people, including 10 teaching and non-teaching school staffers, have been detained over the last 48 hours by the police for questioning. Apart from art teacher Durbanand, police have questioned Anup Chakraborty (dance), Mantosh Sengupta (commerce), Vishwanath (math) and R.N. Pradhan (English). Except Vishwanath, all the others stay in the hostel where Binay was found.

Others quizzed by the police included boys' hostel warden Atanu Nag and nurse Putul.

Police sources said Vishwanath claimed Binay was depressed. He said students had told him Binay suffered from a fear of death. Apparently, he would often cry out and hug his roommate in the middle of the night in panic, he said, adding that at the root of his fear was his dislike for hostel life.

However, Vishwanath's claims contradicted what chairman Sahu told the media. "The boy was absolutely fine, both mentally and physically, and was a bright student. We never spotted him acting abnormally ever. Since two days back, he was not well for which he was being given due medical attention by our medical staff," he said.

Sahu said that an attendant gave him (Binay) medicine around 10pm on Thursday. "But why the boy walked out of his room at midnight is beyond our understanding," he said, adding that for each group of 20 hostel students, a teacher, designated as a "wing parent", stayed with them.

Sahu denied the school management tried to mislead Binay's parents. "Be it suicide, or murder, we have no reason to believe why anyone would do any such thing. Even my daughter lives in the hostel. Had the campus been so unsafe, why would I risk putting her up there?" he said and promised to cooperate with the police probe.

"The entire incident is puzzling for us and like everyone else, we, too, want to know the truth," he said.