Bujrukdighi High School. Picture by Dipankar Chatterjee

Burdwan, July 17: The sudden illness of some two dozen students since Thursday has forced a school in Raina shut.

Bujrukdighi High School is about 40km from the one in Kusumgram where a holiday was declared on Friday after students fainted amid rumours of an evil spirit casting its spell.

The head of the Bujrukdighi school said five girls were taken ill in class on Thursday. “They had convulsions, complained of headache and fell unconscious. We thought the heat had taken its toll, but 10 girls fell unconscious on Friday. We asked students to bring water and food to school on Saturday. But still eight girls fainted. We asked the students to go home after the first period and declared the school closed till July 19,” said headmaster S.K. Bhunia.

At Toiba High School in Kusumgram, a dozen girls fell unconscious in three days. The school reopened today and recorded 85 per cent attendance which, according to headmaster Sheikh Abdul Rashid, was “normal”.

“The Paschim Banga Vigyan Mancha will organise a convention in the school to dispel the fear of spirits,” said Rashid.

At Raina there is no crumbling zamindar mansion — as in Kusumgram — that could house a spirit. Nor do the villagers, aware of the developments in Kusumgram, connect the illness to any spirit.

The headmaster in Raina said a medical team visited the school on Saturday but could not fathom the actual cause of the illness.

Doctors, though baffled, put it down as mass panic syndrome. “If a person falls unconscious, others, too, might become unconscious out of panic. In medical parlance, we call it the phobia disorder,” block medical officer Tushar Kanti Biswas said.

The 14 girls admitted to Burdwan Medical College and Hospital have been released. The head of its psychiatry department, .P. Sinha, attended to them. “It is indeed a phobia disorder or mass psychogenic illness. A neuron in our head imitates others’ action. I think the same phobia disorder is responsible for what happened in the schools,” said Sinha.

Shyamali Das, a Class VI student of Bujrukdighi High School, said she felt uneasy in the chest and fell unconscious. Rinku Khatoon of the same class felt the same way. “I’m all right now,” said Class X student Nibedita Saha, who also had a similar experience.