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Telangana: Class 6 student ‘commits suicide’ at his hostel room
The family members suspect that the boy might have been subject to physical harassment by the school and hostel authorities.
A 12-year old boy allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself at his hostel room at Jeedimetla on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Wednesday.
According to Jeedimetla police, the body of Fareeduddin, a Class 6 student of Telangana Minority Welfare Residential School, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on the first floor of the school building. He reportedly cut his bedsheet vertically, made it into a rope, tied it to the ceiling fan and hanged himself.
School principal Syed Aslam Nazir told the media that Fareeduddin was sharing the hostel room with four other boys, who were fast asleep when he took the extreme step. One of the inmates who woke up in the early hours noticed the boy hanging from the ceiling. He alerted the hostel staff, who in turn informed the police.
The police said Fareeduddin hails from a poor family staying at Venkatramireddy Nagar in Jeedimetla. His father passed away five years ago and his mother Akthar Begum is a daily wage worker.
The family members suspect that the boy might have been subject to physical harassment by the school and hostel authorities. They questioned why the boy’s body was shifted to the hospital without even intimating to them.
However, the police said there were no external injuries on the body. “Preliminary inquiries revealed that Fareeduddin was not interested in studies. He was admitted into this school only on Friday last and he returned home on Saturday. He was forcibly brought back to school on Monday evening. May be he felt home sick,” Jeedimetla sub-inspector K Srinivas told HT.
The police, who booked a case of suspicious death, shifted the body of the boy to Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad for post-mortem.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh child rights association has demanded that the school authorities be held responsible for the death of the boy. “It is their responsibility to provide a safe and secure environment for the children. Their callousness led to the boy’s death,” association president P Achyuta Rao said and demanded that the family be paid an ex gratia of Rs 12 lakh.
