Namuna Bagan Lower Primary School at Borbheta on the outskirts of Jorhat wears a deserted look on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

Borbheta (Jorhat), Nov. 4: Fear looms large over Namuna Bagan Lower Primary School here after the murder of its headmaster on October 20 with only a couple of students attending classes regularly.

A Class V boy, Karan Bhuyan, who was the only student present in the school on the morning of the murder, is in a state of shock and has not attended classes thereafter.

Not only the students, two new teachers, deputed temporarily by the education department to the school to continue its normal functioning, are also working under the shadow of fear.

Ajit Dutta, headmaster of Uttar Hatisungi LP School, now deputed to Namuna Bagan LP School, said he and the other teacher Durgadhar Hensua, like the students, felt “very scared” while taking classes.

Hensua, headmaster of Kohargaon LP School, also said both of them felt “very lonely” as the area was so isolated and quiet. “We feel afraid and worry about our safety as Gogoi was killed very near the school building,” he said, adding that their families were worried too.

The deputation of Dutta and Hensua was necessitated as the school was left without a teacher after the murder of headmaster Dijendra Nath Gogoi. The school’s only other teacher, Kalpana Bordoloi, has been on leave on medical grounds for a month. With Bordoloi expected to resume duty on November 8, the headmasters have been asked to continue teaching in the school till November 7.

Gogoi was shot dead by an unidentified youth on the school premises, about 100 metres from the school building, at 9.20am. The school, established in 1957, falls under Lichubari police outpost, about 10km from here, inside Namuna tea estate of Tocklai Tea Research Institute.

Dutta said attendance records show that on an average, eight to nine students attended school before the murder but only two to three have been attending classes since. The highest attendance on a day since the killing has been seven.

There are altogether 12 students in the school, including girls.

Today, not a single student turned up. The two headmasters came to the school at 8.40am and waited for over an hour for the handful of students who have been coming after the murder but no one turned up. “Maybe the students wanted to take a holiday as today is half-holiday for Muharram,” Dutta said.

The headmasters said Karan had not come to school since the murder and they had heard from his classmates and workers residing near his house that he was terrified and traumatised.

What adds to the element of fear is the isolation of the school building, accentuated by large trees and the eerie silence around it with the labourers’ quarters located at a distance.

The president of the Jorhat unit of Assam Primary Teachers’ Association, Khogeswar Bora, today reiterated their demand for a CBI probe as police have not been able to solve the case.

A police official claimed that the case was “moving in the right direction”. A CID team from Guwahati had come here on October 26 to supervise the police probe.