Tamil Nadu teen’s suicide: Role of stepmother suspected

The death of Lavanya, a class-12 student, in Thanjavur, which had been portrayed as a case of “forced conversion” by the Tamil Nadu BJP, is set to take a new turn, as the role of the girl’s stepmother is to be probed. A detailed inquiry report submitted by the district education officer (DEO) alleges that the girl suffered harassment from her stepmother.

The five-page inquiry report, based on a detailed probe conducted at the Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School at Thirukattupalli, submitted by the Thanjavur DEO with the school education department, categorically denies any religious conversion angle to the girl’s suicide, as alleged by the Tamil Nadu BJP.

“The chief educational officer and the district educational officer have conducted 16 periodical inspections in the school in the last 10 years. We did not receive any complaint about attempts of forced conversion even once from the students,” the report said. The report also gave a detailed breakup of the number of students who have studied in the school from 2013 till the current academic year.

The numbers in the report makes it apparent that majority of the students in the school were from the Hindu community. A total of 7,739 students have studied in the school since 2013 till the current academic year. And of them 5,270 are Hindus while 2,290 students are Christians and 179 are Muslims. As per the report, there are 272 boys and 405 girls in the current academic year and of these, 166 boys and 278 girls are from the Hindu community. Apart from the majority Hindu students, there are 219 Christians and 14 Muslim students. “We have not received any complaint about forced conversion so far from the students there,” the DEO said in his report. The DEO has also said that “since the majority of students in the school are from other faiths, it has been noted that the headmistress and other teachers did not indulge in giving speeches which are Christian by nature.”

The report, while giving the background of the school, says that “The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Congregation that runs the school has been involved in the academic wok for 180 years. The school has been running for 160 years and the hostel was started 90 years before only to help the students in the nearby villages have boarding facilities because there were no buses in the early days.”

Harassment by stepmother

The DEO report also says that the girl had a skin disease called vitiligo and because of it she had white patches in her hands and lips. Incidentally, Lavanya who studied at a school at Vadugarpettai, her hometown, till seventh standard moved to Sacred Heart School only in 2017. She was always a good performer at her school and scored 487 out of 500 in her 10th standard. The report further says that her birth mother, Kanimozhi, committed suicide eight years before. In Lavanya’s application, under the column field ‘mother’, her stepmother, Saranya, had signed. However, Lavanya always suffered harassment from her stepmother, because of the skin disease.

Sources in Thirukattupalli say that Lavanya was always subjected to physical harassment by her stepmother and she was never allowed to mingle with her brothers at home. Even during the girl’s visit to her house during the Diwali holidays, she returned to the hostel with burns and scars in her hands and legs, allegedly caused by her stepmother’s harassment. Sources at Thirukattupalli told THE WEEK that “Lavanya always preferred staying in the hostel as her stepmother used to harass her at home.”

In 2020, just before the Covid 19 lockdown during the holidays at the school, Lavanya refused to leave the school. She chose to remain in the school hostel whenever a holiday was declared. Also the girl preferred being with the warden, Sahaya Mary, who is 68 years old. Mary apparently was arrested on January 16 even before Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai released the video of the girl alleging forced conversion. Mary was arrested based on a complaint by the girl’s parents Murganandham and Saranya. The first complaint by the parents did not cite the conversion angle and only said that “the sister (nun) asked her to do physical chores in the hostel including cleaning the floor”.

The DEO’s report, while categorically denying the allegations of “forced conversion and torture”, says that the girl had problems at home and was physically harassed by her stepmother. The girl, apparently did not want to go home, during the holidays and preferred staying in the hostel, along with the nuns there.

Complaint with Child Helpline 1098

Lavanya had registered a complaint with the child helpline 1098 in 2021, saying she was being physically harassed. But when the helpline officials reached her house, Lavanya, with her stepmother beside her, is said to have denied any such harassment. The helpline officers who visited around six times, did not get any further information. Sources say the call recordings of Lavanya to 1098 are also being probed.

A second video of Lavanya, which surfaced on Thursday, has busted the conversion angle where she says the school and the nuns never knew that she consumed poison. When asked whether a nun asked her not to sport a bindi, she replied in the negative.

Meanwhile, Reverend Sister Rosari of Immaculate Heart of Mary Congregation had filed an impleading petition in the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, which is hearing the Lavanya suicide case. The parents had earlier filed a petition asking for CB-CID or CBI inquiry in the case.