The police registered a case under the JJ Act, but didn't mention any section of the SC/ST Atrocities Act. There has been no arrest either.
Published Oct 02, 2022 | 6:48 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 02, 2022 | 6:51 PM
The Class 10 student was found dead in his home on 27 September. (Creative Commons)
A cook by profession, 41-year-old Bengaluru-resident Maara Hanumaiah is waging a lonely battle demanding justice.
His son, a 17-year-old Class 10 student, died by suicide on 27 September. It was only a day later that the family claimed they found a suicide note.
His family claimed that in the note, he accused his teacher of humiliating him with casteist slurs, pushing him to end his life. The Dalit student’s alleged suicide note has been sent for handwriting analysis.
Hanumaiah has been running from pillar to post to hold the school teacher or teachers culpable for his son taking the extreme step due to the harassment they meted out on him.
The last week has been nightmarish for the Dalit family, which has been trying to get the police to file a case under appropriate sections for caste atrocities.
The Jnanabharathi police have registered a case against the school authorities under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015, but have steered clear of even mentioning the allegations of caste discrimination, or even including sections for abetment of suicide from the FIR.
No arrest has been made in the case.
“My son was an above-average student overall but had problems with mathematics. His math teacher hit him black and blue a few weeks ago, and I went to the school to ask about it. They assured me that it would not be repeated. The same teacher abused him with casteist slurs for complaining about the barbaric assault,” a sobbing Hanumaiah told South First.
The Class 10 student at St Patrick Memorial High School in Ullal Upanagar — run by a Lingayat family — was found dead in his room at his house on the evening of 27 September.
His sister, who returned from tuition, panicked when knocks on the door didn’t elicit any response.
It was only after neighbours struggled to peep through the windows that she learnt he had died by suicide.
“My wife and I rushed back home as soon as my neighbours called me. On the phone, I asked my neighbours to take him to the hospital, but it was already too late,” the grieving father recalled.
The jurisdictional police conducted a mahajar (spot inspection) of the room where the boy was found dead, and registered a case of unnatural death, after which his body was taken away for postmortem.
The next day, 28 September, when Hanumaiah was going through his son’s notebooks, he found something in the math book that looked like a suicide note.
The note started with “I miss you”, and contained a few sentences in Kannada.
“After father brought me back from school 15 days ago, he (teacher) pulled me up for complaining about it (assault) and abused me as ‘h****a m****a’ (a casteist slur). I am unable to call you. Mom, please take care of dad,” read the purported note.
The boy’s suicide note, according to his father. (Supplied)
Hanumaiah confirmed to South First that it was his son’s handwriting, and that he immediately rushed to the police station to inform them about the note.
“The police didn’t take me seriously and mocked me, asking how I got the note so late after all the mahajar processes were over. They accused me of fabricating the note to create a controversy,” he said.
When South First contacted the investigating officer at the Jnanabharathi Police Station, he said the cops had collected the note and also taken some of the boy’s notebooks to verify his handwriting, and submitted them to the forensic lab, which would determine if the note was written by the boy or someone else.
Hanumaiah insisted that an incident of barbaric assault on his son earlier in the month and his suicide are related.
“I was summoned to the school around two weeks ago. A teacher told me over the phone that my son had fallen down and hit his head and was bleeding. When I rushed to the school and checked, I learnt that a math teacher named Dilip had thrashed him, causing him to fall down and hit his head on a bench, leaving him bleeding. There were bruises all over his body. He had been beaten black and blue,” Hanumaiah told South First
He insisted that his questioning of school authorities led to his son being targeted and discriminated against. “They beat him again a couple of days later, in front of his peers, and called him casteist names, which made him take the extreme step,” Hanumaiah alleged.
When he revealed this to the police, they didn’t believe him and asked why he didn’t approach them when the assault took place, he said.
“My son was in Class 10 and he had board exams this year. He could not afford to pursue a criminal case of assault against a teacher, which itself would jeopardise his future and career. The police asked me to accept the reality and move on,” Hanumaiah said.
It was finally with the help of some Dalit rights activists that Hanumaiah could approach higher officials. However, he alleged that thy too insisted that his son’s death was unfortunate but had nothing to do with harassment or caste discrimination.
A local leader of an SC/ST organisation, also a member of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the area, Karthik reiterated that Hanumaiah was in every sense correct with his statements.
The boy’s marks card showed he was an above-average student. (Supplied)
“His son was an above-average student who was good at yoga and sports, displayed leadership qualities, and shows responsibilities, had self-respect, was expressive, and was good at teamwork, according to his school academic records, but he was a little weak at mathematics,” Karthik told South First.
Karthik, along with Hanumaiah, even approached the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) West Division, Laxman Nimbargi, and narrated their ordeal of how his teenage son took the extreme step.
However, the senior police officer maintained that the cops had done whatever they could do in this case, said Karthik.
South First attempted to contact the principal of the school, Shivakumar, his wife Chaya, who is also the school’s administrator, and the mathematics teacher Dilip, but all of their mobile numbers were switched off, and the school office remained closed over the weekend.
Nimbargi told South First what the local police had already said, that a case had been registered under the Juvenile Justice Act and the matter was under investigation.
