A 17-year-old student of a school in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district died after a violent altercation over caste with some schoolmates, following which three students were booked and two teachers suspended.
The victim, Selva Surya, reportedly entered into an altercation on April 26 with another student who was said to be wearing a thread or wrist band denoting a certain caste. According to reports, Surya, who belonged to an OBC community, entered into a fight with a junior who was a Dalit. The argument snowballed into a violent clash when four boys, two each from the respective communities, joined in and Surya was hit in the ear with a stone.
The teachers managed to intervene and separate the group, and the 17-year-old went home after school that day but reportedly suffered excruciating pain through the night following which he was rushed to hospital. He underwent an operation at the Tirunelveli Medical Hospital, but succumbed to his injuries on Saturday.
Following the boy’s death, the Ambasamudram police escalated the case to include sections involving murder and constituted investigation teams to probe the case. Three of Surya’s juniors have been detained and booked for murder among other charges.
Students sporting caste bands has become a regular sight in certain areas of Tamil Nadu, where they use the band’s colours to identity members of their community. The district collector had banned the use of coloured wristbands and other items that may be used to identity castes on educational campuses in 2015.
The Tamil Nadu Directorate of School Education, too, had taken serious note of the trend in August 2019 and issued a circular against the practice. The then school education minister of Tamil Nadu had, however, quashed the notification, claiming no such trend existed.
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