St Columba student suicide: Video of teacher ‘hitting’ boy surfaces

A video shows a teacher hitting a student, who later died by suicide, prompting police investigation and suspension of the involved staff.

NEW DELHI

The school where the student studied. (HT Archive)

Over two months after a 16-year-old student of St Columba School in central Delhi died, reportedly by suicide, a purported 31-second video of the boy being reprimanded and being physically hit three times by a teacher has surfaced.

HT sent the video to Delhi Police for authentication, but did not receive a response until the time of going to print.

On November 18, the Class 11 student jumped from the elevated Metro station after leaving behind a handwritten note in his school bag. In the note, he accused three teachers and the headmistress of repeatedly humiliating him and wrote that his last wish was that “no student should be treated the way I was”. He said those named “must be punished”, and apologised to his parents and older brother.

Police later registered a case under sections 107 (abetment to suicide) and 3(5) (common intention of criminal act) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The boy also wrote that on the day of the incident, he fell during a drama class, but his teacher accused him of faking it. When he cried and insisted he was hurt, she allegedly dismissed that too as fake.

In the video, the boy was seen walking and then hopping over a chair, after which the teacher—who is named in the note—walks after him and hits him three times on his back.

The boy’s father said that he saw the video on Tuesday, and it enraged him.

“We saw the video and it was one hour long. During the one-hour class, the teacher scolded him three times and hit him three times on occasion. We spoke to the police about it and they said that they still cannot arrest the teacher. What more evidence do they want?” the 48-year-old father, a trader in Karol Bagh, said.

The father said that the next hearing in the case at the high court is on March 12 and they will raise the same in the court if the police do not take any action until then.

Two days after the incident, four teachers and the headmistress named in the note were suspended.