Guwahati: A 13-year-old boy who was accused of stealing a cold drink bottle from his classmate’s drawer and then allegedly beaten was found dead under mysterious circumstances at a hostel toilet in Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya, Sher in Arunachal Pradesh’s Kimin, Papum Pare district on Friday (March 11).
The boy’s father has now filed a FIR against the principal and the hostel warden for their alleged negligence and carelessness, and also against two minors (classmates of the deceased) for their alleged role in beating and bullying his son.
The family of the deceased boy now waits for the postmortem report, which will take 15 days. They will be taking the legal course of action if the report states that the boy was murdered. An FIR has been registered. Photos of the boy’s body, which have been published in local dailies in Arunachal Pradesh, show black and blue bruise marks on multiple parts of his body. His family believes this proves that the boy was “indeed assaulted”.
The FIR was filed in the police station at Kimin in Papum Pare district on March 14. The boy’s father in the FIR states, “My son was brought dead at the Community Health Centre (CHC), Kimin without prior information as per the source I know that my son was found hanging on the wooden pole of the common toilet of the hostel. As per interrogation, I found two students who had beaten my son and accusing him of stealing a bottle of cold drink from their drawer which resulted in multiple injuries, swelling and fresh wounds have been seen on his different parts of the body. Hereby, it clearly shows that ragging and bullying took place, and there was negligence and carelessness of the school authority which resulted in the incident.”
Speaking to The Wire, the boy’s elder sister Ngurang Nana said her brother was picked on and bullied on previous occasions, but he never reported this to his parents fearing “severe retaliation” from those who “harassed” him. Nana said once when he had come home during the holidays, his mother saw “wound marks” on his arm. On being asked, he answered it was nothing but kept saying that he “didn’t want to go back to the hostel”.
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“The school authorities had not even bothered [to tell] us when he was brought dead at the CHC in Kimin. They simply ran away from their responsibilities. That is not the end. The principal through a WhatsApp group message (for the parents of the boarders in the school) informed that they should pick up their wards because of the incident. It was only through some of the medical staff and one of my father’s colleagues, and that too after 2-3 hours we got to know that he was dead.”
“This school is highly reputed and getting admission is quite difficult. It was also one of the first such schools in Arunachal Pradesh, established in 1977. My brother was teased and harassed because of his looks. He was told that he won’t get a girlfriend or a wife. But the authorities didn’t take any action against those who harassed him. We are now waiting for the postmortem report. If the report says that he was murdered, we will seek legal justice for him,” said Nana.
She also added that one of the two minors had even “confessed” to his parents and the other to the ADC (police) at the hostel in the evening of March 13. One of the minors, according to her, had left the hostel with his parents on the same day.
VKV, Sher has had its share of controversies. Last September, sodomy and sexual harassment case rocked the school. The office of the Child Welfare Committee, Itanagar submitted a report to the district child protection officer in Yupia, Papum Pare district.
In the report, the team recommended, “In fact, we believe that cases of sodomy or sexual harassment by seniors often take place but often goes unreported due to stigmatisation and fear. Due to the lack of material evidence, it has become impossible to establish that such cases actually take places, so a proper investigation is needed to carry as per the procedure under the law.”
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The report also mentioned, “During enquiry by the team some students of classes four to five told that students of classes eight, nine and ten try to commit such acts but none of them were ready to disclose that they were victims of such acts except for one junior student who told one of our team members that he was a victim of such an act.”
Ngurang Reena, a cousin of the deceased who is a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told The Wire, “There is a common pattern emerging across the educational institutions in India where rampant incidents of ragging and bullying continue to occur. But the sad part is that action is less against such acts. In Arunachal Pradesh instances of violence are on the surge. Often enough, the concept of masculinity and attitudes like ‘boys will be boys’ lead to bullying. My cousin was emotional, sensitive and kind-hearted, and this was considered as a ‘weakling’ trait by those who assaulted him.”