Teacher mocked my son, says father of Class 10 student who died by suicide at Delhi’s Rajendra Place metro station

The boy’s father has alleged in the FIR that four teachers, including the school’s principal, had caused deep mental distress to his son, pushing him to take the drastic step.

“Yesterday [my son’s] classmates told me that in the last four days [a teacher] had threatened my son that she would call his parents and get his TC (transfer certificate) done. [Another teacher] has also pushed my son,” the father alleged.

According to the FIR, on Tuesday (November 18) the student fell down during his dramatics class and was mocked for it by his teacher.

“[The teacher] told him that he was overacting and doing drama… After that she said no matter how much he (the student) cried, it would not make a difference to her,” the complaint alleged.

During investigation, the police found the suicide note in the boy’s backpack. In it, the boy profusely apologised to his family for having taken his own life, saying, “What can I say, the teachers of my school are like this.”

Satish Jadav, a friend of the boy’s family, was leading the protest in front of the school on Thursday. “This was a murder, not a suicide,” Jadav said. “His friends told us that he was interested in pursuing drama and was not getting good marks in his other subjects… Because of this, the school’s teachers would taunt him. They had been doing this for the past year but it really increased in the last two months,” he said.

According to Jadav, the boy had pleaded with his parents to put him in another school. “But he was in class 10, so changing schools in the middle of the year would have been difficult. His parents had told him that they would change his school after he finished class 10,” he said.

Jadav said that the boy’s parents were in Maharashtra for a surgery his mother had to undergo when they received the news of their death. “His body has still not reached Sangli. The last rites will be performed in Maharashtra, where his parents are,” Jadav said.

Other parents who were present at the gates of the school echoed some of the sentiments expressed by Jadav. The mother of a former student of the school who requested not to be identified said her son was still recovering from the trauma he had faced at the school.

“My son was good at debating but there was a lobby of teachers in the school who would favour certain children and put their names forward for competitions. All my son’s achievements were overlooked – the prizes he won, the trophies he got were never acknowledged. In class, the teachers would ridicule him… He became incredibly withdrawn after that. He graduated from this school this year and is now focusing on his mental health. He hates to even look at the school when we pass by the building,” the woman said.

A group of former students of the school who were on their way to college, had stopped at the protest on Thursday. Among them was a student who identified himself as Umar, and said he belonged to the class of 2024 of the school. He said that he was shocked to hear the news, but he was not sure it was fair to blame the teachers.

“The teachers here were strict but they would at most threaten us with calling our parents. Or they would ask us to get a note signed by them. We were more scared of our parents than of the teachers. They would pull us up for bad behaviour, but never for academics,” Umar said.

Another boy, who too left the school in 2024, however, had a different view. This boy, who said he was 19 years old and identified himself as Christian Robert, said he had left the school in class 11, and had then finished his schooling from open school.

“These boys don’t have any complaints [against the teachers] because they were good performers. Those of us who fared poorly in examinations know how we were treated,” Robert said.

He alleged that there was a marked difference in the ways in which the teachers treated well-performing students and those with poor marks.

“They (the teachers) would make us sit away from other students and would constantly compare us unfavourably with them. A teacher once told me that she pitied my parents for having a son like me,” Robert said.

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