VIJAYAWADA: Sexual abuse is suspected to have prompted K Sai Charan, a Class X student of Nellore’s Ravindra Bharathi School, to commit suicide by hanging at his hostel in Vijayawada on February 15.
Officials, who are probing the incident, expressed doubts in this regard over the causes for the suicide and the same will be included in the report to be submitted to the State government.
Top officials involved in the probe told Express that they had information that Sai Charan was subjected to sexual abuse, which might have forced him to take the extreme step under depression.
However, the involvement of school staff or management in creating such an environment inside the school is yet to be ascertained.
Simultaneous investigations have been taken up by the district education department, the district women and child welfare department and the police department to ascertain the causes for his extreme step.
Further, the inquiry officers have alleged that they were under pressure from the higher authorities to close the case.
They said that unless a high level probe is ordered into the incident, the actual facts about the death of Sai Charan will remain a mystery.
However, they admitted that so far, there was no concrete evidence over the alleged sexual abuse though they gathered information in this regard.
Taking a suo moto case in connection with the incident, the Andhra Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) has also conducted an inquiry into it.
SCPCR in-charge chairperson S Balaraju said that the commission has issued notices to the district collector, asking him to order an inquiry, but there was no response so far.
The commission also observed that the report submitted by the Krishna district education officer into the inciden was very vague and that it was similar to the school management’s version.
According to the Machavaram police, the postmortem report revealed that the boy died due to hanging and found no evidence to suggest sexual abuse.
“The police are saying that as the boy’s parents did not make any allegations against the school management, they are unable to investigate further into the incident with regard to any suspicious involvement of school management,” Balaraju added.
However, school management denied the allegations and said that there is no such environment inside school to abuse children physically or mentally.
“These allegations are not true. The school staff won’t behave in such manner towards the children staying in the hostel. There is no need for the school management to influence the investigative officials either,” said dean of Ravindra Bharathi school, G Sathya Chithra.