Indian police are searching for a teacher accused of beating a low-caste student to death over a spelling mistake, officers said Tuesday, after suppressing violent protests triggered by the incident.
Nikhil Dohre was struck with a rod and kicked until he fell unconscious by his high school teacher earlier this month after misspelling the word “social” in an exam, according to a police complaint by his father.
The 15-year-old died from his injuries on Monday at a hospital in northern Uttar Pradesh state, and the accused has fled the area.
“He is on the run, but we will arrest him soon,” police officer Mahendra Pratap Singh told AFP.
How many casteist brutes is India harbouring in classrooms? A few weeks ago a Dalit child beingwas killed for drinking water meant for the teacher, now we have another Dalit student in Auraiya district, UP, being beaten for a wrong answer. He died later. Horrific, unacceptable.
— pamela philipose (@pamelaphilipose) September 27, 2022
The incident took place on September 13 when the class 10 student made a mistake in a class test.
A video shared by the boy’s family, shot on a mobile phone in the hours after the alleged assault, shows him lying on what appears to be a stretcher. His eyes appear puffed, and the boy is barely conscious.
The student died in the ambulance while being shifted to the Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences at Saifai in Etawah for treatment on Monday.
A case has been registered against the accused teacher, who is absconding.
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Dohre was a member of the Dalit community, which sits at the lowest rung of India’s caste system and has been subject to prejudice and discrimination for centuries.
Hundreds of people took to the streets on Monday after news of Dohre’s death spread in Auraiya district, the location of the attack.
The crowd demanded the teacher’s arrest before the cremation of the boy’s body and torched a police vehicle.
Around a dozen protesters had been arrested, Singh said.
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“We used force to quell the mob and the situation soon came under control,” Superintendent of Police Charu Nigam told reporters.
AFP with additional input by GVS News Desk