Class 10 student suicide: School counsels students, parents struggle to make sense of tragedy; NHRC seeks report

The complaint states that “several teachers, including the Principal, routinely mocked, humiliated, and threatened the student”, and that former students and parents had shared “similar experiences of mental harassment, segregation, negative comparisons, and long-lasting trauma”.

The NHRC observed that these allegations “prima facie seem to be violations of the human rights of the victims”.

Three days after the student died by suicide, St Columba’s school continued to hold cautionary and counselling-led conversations with students, a process that began the day after the incident.

Four teachers were suspended by the administration on Thursday, and police have been recording student statements over the past two days. Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood has said that an investigation committee has been set up by the state government.

Several mourners continued to protest outside the gates of the school on Friday, and conversations about mental health seemed to be the loudest and most animated.

Life-skills sessions and mental health seminars have been a “regular practice” at the school, one of the boy’s classmates, who was also his close friend, said on Friday.

He said that after the tragedy, the principal of the school and other staff members had gone to every class expressing condolences, and emphasising that students should not spread any rumours. It has been explained to them that the legal course of action is being followed, and there is no need to worry, the student said.

Several parents told The Indian Express that the school has four counsellors, each of whom has responsibility for a group of classes. The parent of a Class 10 boy called it “a support system” for the children.

“The counsellors have been meeting students who approach them for help regularly. General counselling sessions are conducted across senior classes, and teachers are asked to flag any child who shows signs of distress,” the parent said.

Recalling a conversation during a PTA meeting, the parent said teachers sometimes express their angst about the difficulty “in controlling older students, as they are energetic, growing physically and emotionally”. This parent said that sometimes teachers are strict with students, “but it’s both ways”.

The mother of a close friend of the boy recalled that the boy had “not been behaving like himself” for the past four or five days. He had shaved his head recently, and had “shrugged it off” when asked why he had done so, the mother said.

This parent said even parents sometimes request counsellors for a session. “It is very difficult for me too to control them… because they are boys, growing,” she said.

Another parent and a former St Columba’s mother, felt “parents are the biggest victims of such tragedies”. She said St Columba’s used to be a “chilled-out school” 10 years ago, “from what I have experienced”. She said she could not say how things have changed since, but “One life gone means several lives broken.”

A Class 10 schoolmate of the boy who met him every day described him as “very social… very outgoing”, but with some “disciplinary issues”. The boy would approach counsellors regularly, the schoolmate said. “The counsellors helped and gave him suggestions… He was asked to bring parental consent, so that the sessions could be more regular and official,” he said.

According to this schoolmate, the tragedy was “a culmination of different things”.

The parent of another friend of the boy said her son had been deeply impacted. “Mumma, kaise kar sakta hai? Interval mein mila tha… he was so normal. (How could he do this? I met him during the interval…),” the parent said, quoting her son. Her husband “was crying like a baby”, this parent said.