Delhi police investigating the suicide of the Class 10 boy who jumped from a metro platform to his death said that they have examined CCTV footage and identified five of the boy’s friends.
The police questioned three of the Shaurya Patil’s classmates, who were identified as witnesses and named in the FIR by the boy's father.
The students narrated the happenings of the the last four days before the 16-year-old's death and alleged that he was picked on repeatedly by three teachers.
The children presented a uniform narrative, according to a Hindustan Times report. An investigator said that the group of friends felt targeted, intimidated and were routinely humiliated by the staff members.
Some of the incidents the students narrated were also backed by CCTV footage. In one of the recordings, a teacher is “seen humiliating him in front of other kids”, a police officer said.
According to the FIR filed by Shaurya’s father, she left home at 7:15 am on November 18. Around 2:45 am, his father, who was in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, received a call informing him that Shaurya had fallen from a metro station and was taken to BLK hospital, where he was declared dead.
Copies of the boy’s suicide note were found pasted on and outside school premises and were widely circulated across social media platforms.
On Thursday, the school had suspended the four teachers after they were booked under BNS sections 107 (abetment to suicide) and 3 (5) common intention.
CCTV footage, which covered November 11 to 18, were retrieved from in and around the school.
The students' accounts suggest a pattern of persistent scolding and disproportionate punishment directed at the boy and his friends.
A notice sent by the National Human Rights Commission NHRC to the district magistrate and the deputy commissioner of police of Delhi, demanded that an action taken report be submitted within 10 days for perusal into the allegations made by the boys’ father on November 19.
