“She was a gem,” Bindu says as she recalls little Libna KP, her bright-eyed student of Class 7, at the SNDP Higher Secondary School in Malayattoor Neeleeswaram. “She is still here, that’s what I want to believe. Whenever I look over and see that empty seat in my classroom, I feel as if she has simply left to attend her Sanskrit class and will return any minute now.”
Five days ago, in the wee hours of Monday, October 30, 12-year-old Libna succumbed to the third-degree burns she suffered from a series of bomb blasts, a terror attack that shook Kerala. Libna was among the three persons killed in the aftermath of the blasts, which took place during a prayer meeting of the Jehovah’s Witnesses at Kalamassery in Ernakulam district on October 29. Around 60 people were injured, and by evening a former member of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect, Dominic Martin, took responsibility for the attack.
Libna’s mortal remains were brought to her school around 10.30 am on Saturday, for her teachers and classmates to pay respects. Here, in a mini coffin that remained closed, her lifeless body rested for one last time, on the same spot that she stood in attention for the school assembly every morning.
“The students wanted to see her once, so we asked her family if they could bring her body here to the school. For her to rest, we arranged the same spot where she used to stand for the assembly,” says Joy, president of the school’s Parents Teachers Association (PTA).
It was on October 26 that Libna last came to school before she left to attend the fateful prayer convention, and the students and teachers are yet to recover from the shock. As her coffin was carried into the school a week later, her friends and classmates broke down in tears, their teachers struggling to console them.
Bindu, Libna’s class teacher, says she was the best student in her class. “Everybody loved her because she mingled with everyone with love and affection. The students are also very attached to each other, especially since the class had only 17 students.”
The teacher reminisces how she once had to go on a medical leave for two weeks, and Libna sent her the sweetest letter by post. “Her intelligence was palpable. She wrote that she loved me, that she was missing me. She said she understood that I scolded students for their own good, for their future. I have been a teacher for 34 years, and this letter was a very special gift to me.”
Sreeja, Libna’s English teacher, says she was an excellent student, “200% attentive” in class. “She listened to every word we said with a smile, which never left her face. I have never seen her fight with anyone. She was a calm person, not always in the middle of the action, and because of her intelligence we always wanted her to engage in more activities. When we asked her to do something, she never refused or claimed that she didn’t know how. She always said she will try,” says Sreeja. She adds that apart from her studies, Libna was also good at drawing.
Libna’s mother Saly (45), brothers Praveen (24) and Rahul (21) — who had also suffered burns from the blast and are currently under treatment — are yet to be informed of her death. Instead, her father Pradeepan accompanied her coffin to the school on Saturday. Pradeepan had not attended the prayer convention in Kalamassery due to a prior work commitment. “He is not talking to anyone. If we ask him anything, he simply nods his head. He has also not eaten anything since he morning, just drank a glass of water,” says Joy.
Around 12.30 pm, Libna’s mortal remains were shifted to her home in Malayattoor, where prayers were held from 2.30 to 3 pm. Her body was subsequently taken to the Jehovah’s Witnesses cemetery at Koratty.