An Instagram post, a ‘warning’ by teachers, and a student’s suicide that rocked Kerala’s Palakkad

The boy died by suicide soon after getting home from school on Tuesday. On Thursday, hundreds of students from his school, which is run by a private trust, took out a protest, demanding action against the teachers involved.

The Education Department has suspended the student’s class teacher and the headmistress of the school. It has also ordered a probe into the incident.

The SHO of the police station in the area said a case of unnatural death has been registered. “We are looking into whether teachers have to be listed as accused for abetting the suicide. Neither the postmortem nor the inquest has revealed signs of torture or physical assault. The statements of teachers and students will be recorded,” the SHO said.

According to the student’s uncle, the incident leading to the suicide began last Friday with a quarrel among four students over an Instagram post. One student allegedly used profane language referring to the father of another student. The uncle of the boy who died claimed that he had only forwarded the post to another student. “On Monday, an aggrieved parent of one of the students went to the school with a complaint. In the presence of teachers, the matter was then solved,” the uncle said.

However, the next day, the boy’s class teacher and headmistress, who had been absent the previous day, brought up the issue again. According to the uncle, the class teacher summoned the four students, singled out the boy, and “threatened that the matter would be put before the police and that a cyber crime case would be registered”.

“The issue had been solved on Monday itself, but the teacher unnecessarily revived the issue the next day. He might have been perturbed over the threat of the case. Upon returning home, he died by suicide even without changing his school uniform,” the uncle said.

He also alleged that the class teacher had “harassed him physically and mentally in the office room”.

The headmistress denied allegations of harassment. “The teacher might have advised and warned him with good intentions. She had only tried to convince him about the consequences of a cyber crime case. Teachers will have only genuine and good intentions in such situations,” she said.

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