School holds prayers for girl killed in ski lift fall

Grieving pupils today held a special prayer ceremony for a student who plunged to her death from a ski lift during a school trip.

Poonam Bhattal died after falling 20 feet on to rocks in a stream in the Italian Alps resort of Claviere.

This morning, tributes poured in for the 13-year-old, described as a “beautiful girl”, while her school put on a special assembly.

Rajinder Singh Sandhu, the principal of Guru Nanak Sikh Academy in Hayes, said Poonam, from Slough, was a “very high achieving student” who was on course to achieve straight As in her GCSEs.

He said: “The leader of this trip and everyone associated with it is devastated by the death of an absolutely lovely student.”

Dozens of tributes were posted on Twitter, including: “Poonam Bhattal a beautiful girl who we were all so lucky to have known.”

Poonam fell on Friday morning and died of suspected cardiac arrest en route to hospital.

An accident investigator told a newspaper: “She ended up sitting in the arms of a school friend. Because of this the safety bar didn’t go all the way down, so at the first tremor of the lift, she slid and fell.”