On November 4, 2005 the Holy See of Echmiadzin fired Sonya John, the director of the Armenian College of Calcutta.
Forty children, all of them boys, are ill with hepatitis in the Armenian College of Calcutta over the last few months. The cause of the epidemic is still unclear.
In response to our recent articles on the Armenian College in Calcutta , we received the following letter from a reader in Bangladesh , who adds, "You can publish what I wrote in Hetq but I don't want to harm anyone. Please see that the article does not harm the children and the Armenian families of Calcutta." We reprint the letter in its entirety, with minor changes for the sake of clarity.
Hetq Online received a number of letters in response to our articles on the Armenian College of Calcutta. The authors are concerned about the current situation there, but stress that everything should be done in a way that would rule out the possibility of closing the educational center, which has been in operation since 1821. They are particularly concerned about the violence against the children, and the state of their physical and psychological...
The charitably run Armenian College in Calcutta, India was established in 1821, through a bequest from the will of Astvatsatur Muradkhanyan, a wealthy Armenian from Jugha. Later, the Davidyan School for Girls and the Galutsyan School merged with the college.
"We were playing Rugby in the seminary yard and the ball hit me in the left ear. I felt a stab of pain, and fell into the mud; then the boys sat me down on the stairs. Then one day when we were playing, my friend Harutik whispered something in my left ear, I couldn't hear it, I couldn't hear it at all.