UP: ‘Tortured’ by teacher, student, 11, ends life

Lucknow: An 11-year-old boy in Gorakhpur committed suicide by consuming rat poison after he was allegedly harassed by the school teacher.

The boy was taken to the BRD Medical College but he died during treatment on Wednesday night. In a suicide note found in his school bag, he said his teacher had humiliated him and had made him stand on the bench for a long period of time.

The police registered a case against the management and the principal of his school after the boy’s father claimed he was harassed by the school authorities.

The boy, Navneet Prakash, was a student of Class 5 in the St Anthony Convent School in Shahpur area.

His father, Ravi Prakash, said that on September 15, his son had been punished by the teacher. “He was quite upset when he came back from school. The teacher had made him stand on the bench for a long time and tortured him mentally. He did not look normal from that day and seemed to be in depression. The school is responsible for his death,” he said.

The police has registered a case of abetment to suicide against the school management and principal.

SSP Satyarth Anirudh Pankaj said, “We are waiting for the post mortem report to know if the boy died of poison”.

School principal Sister Ish Priya said the boy or his parents had never informed her of the teacher’s behaviour. She said the entire school stood with Navneet’s family in their hour of grief.