Thanjavur girl’s suicide: Amid conversion charge, claims and counter claims

The following day, she was taken to a local clinic near her home, but as her condition worsened, on January 15, she was taken to Thanjavur Medical College, where doctors found her liver had been severely damaged. She died on January 19.

The next day, P Muthuvel, the district secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, released a video of the girl in which she is seen saying that two years ago, an administrator from her school asked her parents to convert to Christianity, but they refused. A male voice is heard asking if her problems began since then and she says, “Maybe”.

Muthuvel had access to the girl, as she lay in a precarious condition in hospital, through her close relative. A police probe would later find that the video was shot at 10.30 am on January 17, two days before her death.

The BJP jumped right in after the girl’s death, seeking “justice for the girl”, with state president Annamalai calling conversion a “fast-growing poisonous plant” in Tamil Nadu. Even as police began probing the case and arrested Sahaya Mary, the hostel warden – who came out on bail a week ago – the BJP got the parents to file a petition in the Madras High Court, which sought for the probe to be transferred to the CBI.

While the girl and her parents didn’t mention the conversion charge in their detailed statements to the police before her death, in the weeks since then, more strands have emerged – of the girl being allegedly tortured by her stepmother and of her being overworked in school.

Speaking to The Indian Express at his home, Muruganandam, 44, the girl’s father, dismissed doubts over the veracity of the video shot by the VHP leader.

The girl was one of his three children from the first marriage. After his wife Kanimozhi died by suicide in 2013, he married again and has a child from his second marriage.

His wife Saranya alleged that when they visited the girl at her hostel two years ago, a day before her Class 10 exams, Sahaya Mary tried to persuade them to let the girl join the convent. “She told us why not let our daughter join them (the convent). She said why marry, have children and then take on all the problems. She said our daughter can join them and live peacefully like them. My husband got angry and upset, so they pacified him before we left the hostel,” she said.

“Now we realise she was troubled a lot after that incident,” said Muruganandam, clarifying that was the last time the school and the hostel broached the subject of conversion. He also said he doesn’t know if the school had been putting pressure on her to convert.

In their statements to the police, the parents had alleged that the girl was made to do “extra work” in the school and the hostel – something that is also borne out by the girl’s statement to the police and the magistrate.

“They got her to do all the work. She was troubled a lot,” Muruganandam said. “On the morning of Christmas last year, I went there to bring her home, but they denied me permission. Later, she told us that they had made her cook for everyone in the hostel during the Christmas vacation. They had also been taking her to Trichy every month without our permission,” said Saranya.

In her statement recorded on the morning of January 16, the girl alleged Sagaya Mary took her to a “Trichy office” even after her mother objected. “She (Sahaya Mary) used to ask me and the other students to clean the hostel, clear the ground of grass, to wash the premises, etc. I could not concentrate on my studies,” the girl said, adding that this contributed to “mental stress”. On the evening of January 9, she said, she consumed poison when she was “asked to do more and more work” and also scolded.

A senior officer who was part of the investigation said, “We interviewed about 50 students and they all said this girl was the best of them all. Since she was brilliant, Sahaya Mary, the warden, relied on her to handle the hostel’s account books and ration records. The monthly trips to Trichy were to the church office to submit the accounts. The other students said that while they only got gardening work, the girl got to handle work in the office too. But none of them complained about conversion attempts – and majority of the students are Hindus.”

The police probe has revealed another angle to the case. In July 2020, a call was made by a close relative of the girl to the ChildLine service, alleging that the girl was being harassed by her stepmother. Following the call, officials from ChildLine had visited the girl’s home to speak to the victim.

Muruganandam dismissed it as a baseless charge. “My daughter was cooking rice and the pressure cooker exploded. The lid hit her on her face and she was injured, but they interpreted it as torture,” said Muruganandam, pointing to stains on the kitchen wall to prove his point.

While the school and the church management refused to comment on the case, Lourd Xavier, 48, former panchayat president of Michealpatty who is involved in activities of the church and the school management, said the school has never had to face a conversion allegation before. On the girl, he said, “Everyone loved her. She was efficient and good at studies. When she attained puberty, the Christian sisters organised the rituals as per Hindu customs. She would have joined BSc Nursing next year and they had made all arrangements for her. One of her teachers was paying her fee as well.” Xavier was among the half-a-dozen people, including a teacher and elders from the village, who visited the girl in the hospital a day before her death.

“One of the teachers told her, ‘You are such a good student… Why did you do this?’ Her eyes welled up with tears. The teacher consoled her and said she should come back soon. She said, ‘No sir, I won’t be coming back to the school again’,” Xavier said, adding the girl’s stepmother was by her bedside that day.

The girl’s parents refuted Xavier’s claims that the sisters had organised her coming of age rituals. “We organised an event at home, where we invited some 500 people. Their claims are false,” said Muruganandam.

The parents also denied that one of the teachers paid the girl’s fee.“We paid Rs 7,000 as annual fee, Rs 2,500 as hostel fee and a monthly mess fee of Rs 700. We never asked for their help,” she said, showing the receipts.