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Tamil Nadu sees 5 school student suicides in 2 weeks
The spate of student suicides in Tamil Nadu began when a class 12 girl was found dead in her hostel premises in Kallakurichi district on July 13
With two more cases coming to light on Wednesday, Tamil Nadu recorded five cases of student suicides in the past two weeks. The victims, four girls and a boy, hail from either poor or lower middle-class families and the reasons for their action ranged from studies to those still shrouded in mystery.
A Class 12 male student was found dead by his parents at their home at Karaikudi in Sivagangai district on Tuesday night. “There is a suicide note which clearly says that he did not like the Biology-Maths group. His parents are blaming themselves because they wanted him to take the group while he had told them he did not like it,” T Senthil Kumar superintendent of police (SP), Sivagangai district told HT. The boy studied in a private school and his parents belonged to a middle class family who were in the business of selling jute bags. A post mortem was completed on Wednesday and the parents took his body home.
A Class 11 girl died by suicide inside her home in Virudhunagar district’s Sivakasi. The death was reported on Tuesday when the girl was at home with her grandmother. Her parents, who work in a fireworks factory in Sivakasi, found her dead when they returned home. “Her parents told us that she suffered severe menstrual pain which may have led her to take the extreme step… But that’s the parents’ version,” Virudhunagar SP M Manohar told HT. Manohar added that a case of unnatural death has been registered and the body was sent for autopsy to ascertain the cause of death. An investigation into the circumstances of her death is underway, he said.
On Tuesday, about 400km from Sivakasi district, a Class 12 girl died by suicide inside her home in Cuddalore district. Police said that initial investigations indicated that the girl was under pressure due to the monthly tests underway at the school and she had a rift with her mother over studies.
On Monday, a class 12 girl was found dead inside her hostel attached to a government aided school in Thiruvallur district. No reason has been ascertained in her case as yet.
The spate of student suicides began when a class 12 girl was found dead in her hostel premises on July 13 in Kallakurichi district. Her parents suspected foul play in her death while police and the school said that she jumped to her death from her hostel room. The child’s family and locals protested for her justice, refused to take her body, and wanted action against the private school which eventually culminated in a riot-like situation on July 17. The incident shook the state. The school was damaged, locals indulged in arson and 52 police officials were injured. Before handing over the case to the CB-CID, the local police arrested the school’s principal, correspondent, secretary and two teachers in connection with the girl’s death and hundreds of others for the violence.
While hearing the Kallakurichi girl’s death case, the Madras high court ordered that every suicide of a student inside an educational institution must be handed over to the CB-CID. So the cases of the Thiruvallur and Kallakurichi students’ death are being probed by the agency.
Reacting to a string of deaths, chief minister MK Stalin on Tuesday described the recent incidents of student suicides as painful and asked educational institutes to treat education as a service and not as a business. “Students should be taught to deal with any situation,” he said. On Wednesday, Stalin flagged off a mental health awareness drive for school students.
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