A class 12 student of Chinmaya Vidyalaya was found dead in her house in Coimbatore RS Puram. Her friend has reported that constant assaults on her in the school had led her to commit suicide. She has left behind a suicide note with three names mentioned and the emphasis that they need to be severely punished.
The girl had resumed offline schooling and had suddenly wanted to discontinue her schooling, owing to the assault by her teacher, and had gotten a TC. Reportedly, she had approached her principal and the counselor who had asked her to be quiet and shove this matter away. The school had also arranged for counseling, during which the student was allegedly told not to take the assault or harassment seriously and to brush it off “as she would if someone bumped into her on a bus,” the girl’s mother said.
Even now, after we have known what happens to stifle trauma within, the advice remained the same and her silence did her no good.
On November 11, the inevitable happened as the girl committed suicide when her parents were out. She had contacted her best friend. “She was depressed and couldn’t forget the incident even after counseling,” he says, as he talked about how he had found the door locked and upon breaking it, found her body hanging.
Adding on, the friend also stated how the teacher Mithun Chakravarthy had befriended the student over phone chats and had dropped her home once. The student’s friend alleged that the way Mithun spoke to the victim from the beginning was inappropriate. “He sexually assaulted her once in school and harassed her many times. His wife teaches in the same school, she and the principal knew about all this, but they did nothing,” the friend alleged.
“She was very distressed. She became scared of men in general. She was unable to forget the incident. She kept saying she felt disgusted,” said her friend. He alleged that the school had promised the student that they would dismiss the teacher, but did not, initially.
The principal voiced their side by shifting blame to the parents and that they had shifted schools due to financial situations and not because of such incidents. Mithun was said to have resigned due to medical issues.
The incidents took a heavy turn with protests against the teacher and the school being carried out on Friday, November 12, by the All India Democratic Association (AIDWA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, and Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (TPDK) outside the Coimbatore collectorate’s office.
The minor girl’s father Makuteshwaran said, “Though my daughter had complained, no action was taken against him. Mithun had continuously tortured my daughter but the principal didn’t even take the complaint seriously.”
The accused teacher, Mithun Chakravarthy, has been detained by the police and booked under section 306 of the Indian Penal Code and section 9L r/w section 20 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The RS Puram All Women’s Police Station (AWPS) is currently conducting the investigation.
