(MENAFN - The Peninsula) The teacher who had taken the students on a picnic on Sunday, during which one Qatari girl met a serious accident and fractured her skull, has been remanded in police custody for four days for questioning.
She has also been suspended pending the completion of a parallel investigation launched by the regulator of schools, the Supreme Education Council (SEC).
The police have forwarded the matter to Public Prosecution which is also likely holding a probe in the matter.
Meanwhile, another person, who told law-enforcement agencies that the girl got injured after she fell from a hired quad-bike during the picnic, was arrested and let out on a personal bail of QR3,000.
The man was taken into police custody for misleading the law-enforcement agencies about the actual cause of the mishap.
The accident had taken place while the girl was trying to get into the personal car of the teacher who was behind the steering. She sped the car before the girl could get in. She fell as a result.
The teacher and the girl along with four other students were returning from a homestead near the picnic spot and heading back to join the rest.
The girl remains admitted to the intensive critical care unit (ICCU) of the emergency department of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and her condition was described by doctors as stable and she has been showing improvement, local Arabic daily Al Raya reported yesterday.
The school has, meanwhile, taken its hands off the tragedy and said that the picnic was not organised by its management.
The school has said that the teacher being blamed for the mishap had lined up the outing of her own volition.
She used the official letter head of the school and its seal to shoot off letters to the parents urging them to allow their children to go on the picnic.
The fateful picnic was held on the day the school was closed, the school said in a letter to the daily.
The girl was first admitted to Al Khor Hospital and was later shifted to HMC's ICCU.
The SEC has set up a committee that is investigating the incident to find out exactly how the accident happened and who was responsible for it.
The SEC's probe panel has members from its legal affairs department as well as from the office (within the SEC) in-charge of Independent Schools.
The institution in which the girl was studying was an Independent School, it is understood.
A senior official from the SEC, Saba Al Haidoos, visited the ICCU of HMC to enquire about the condition of the girl on Monday evening.
The girl's father, Hamad Al Kubaisi, told the daily that the Minister of Education and Secretary-General, H E Saad bin Ibrahim Al Mahmoud, called him and enquired about his daughter's health.
"The minister has assured me that appropriate action will be taken against the school and the teacher who took the students for a picnic during which the accident took place," Al Kubaisi said.
