BENGALURU: The Baldwin Boys’ High School at Hosur Road had a meeting with parents and students on Monday after a Class 9 student recently committed suicide, alleging bullying by his classmates.
Speaking to Express after the meeting, the school authorities said according to the students, no bullying happened on the school premises or in the school bus.
Dinakar Wilson, principal of the school, said, “We called a meeting with students and parents where even the police officers were present and took statements of students. The students said during the meeting that no such incident had happened on the school premises or in the bus.”
“Everything was fine till 3pm. Whatever, we have lost our boy and it is a shock for us. The police are investigating the case and we are cooperating with them,” Dinakar said. The school has intensified measures to prevent students from indulging in bullying. “Every day in the prayer assembly, we tell students about all these issues and now this has been intensified,” he said.
Online petition
Dyuti Banerjee, sister of Raunak, has started an online petition to spread awareness on bullying. In her petition, she says that in his suicide note, her brother had written that he “couldn’t take it anymore and was terribly bullied by a group of boys in school”.
The petition is titled “State-wide Anti-Bullying Drive to Spread Awareness.” In her petition, Dyuti describes her brother Raunak as “a soft-hearted, good-natured 14-year kid. He jumped off the 10th floor of his apartment after leaving a suicide note in his school bag.”
“I lost a brother because the system doesn’t care to protect schoolchildren from mental, emotional and physical torture. But no more kids should be lost to this social evil,” she said. The petition has received over 2,496 supporters so far.
Meanwhile, the JP Nagar police has intensified the probe. The police have registered a case under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC, and have mentioned in the FIR that Raunak said in the note that he was bullied by a boy in the van and the other boys did not support him and this led him to take the extreme step.