NEW DELHI: A day after four teachers of St Columba's School were suspended over the suicide of Class X student Shourya Patil, protesters outside the Gole Market institute on Friday demanded that the four should be held accountable and arrested for allegedly driving him to his death.
Shourya's uncle, Puneet Bhola, a resident of Karol Bagh, said, "We are trying our best to get the culprits arrested. But the school is not supporting us. I think they are trying to brush it under the carpet. I want justice for Shourya." He added, "Yesterday too, we stood here for two hours but nothing happened. Where are the authorities and the CM when we need them? However, we will not let the protest die down."
Shourya's friends, fellow students and concerned citizens also said the protests would continue, with a candlelight vigil scheduled at India Gate the next day and a demonstration at the Delhi Police headquarters later.
Voices cracking with emotion and faces etched with sorrow and fury, they carried placards bearing the boy's photo and his suicide note, raising them high as they chanted slogans.
At the protest site, candles and flowers were placed gently at the foot of Shourya's poster. Even as the crowd mourned together, betraying the collective weight of grief while voicing the demand for accountability, an encounter he purportedly had on Nov 18, the last day of his life, revealed the depth of his despair.
"I met him for the first time as he was about to take a rickshaw from outside the school that afternoon. Sobbing uncontrollably, he said he regretted studying there and feared that if he told this to his parents, they would be angry," Deepshikha, one of the protesters, recalled.
"When I asked him if he had money for the rickshaw, he said no. So I gave him some. If I knew he would do this, I wouldn't have let him go that day. Now, I constantly see his face in front of me," she said.
Current students, requesting anonymity for fear of being targeted, claimed that the school authorities told them to exit from another gate instead of the main one so they would not be able to witness Friday's protest. "I was told to pick up the students from this gate today," a van driver said, adding that school coordinators were ensuring the children headed straight for their vans without speaking to the protestors.
Describing a "toxic environment", Shourya's close friends claimed some teachers threaten students daily, click photos of their ID car-ds for minor issues, call parents for small infractions and reprimand children even for coughing.
"Shourya was constantly being told that he would be given a transfer certificate," said a friend who claimed to have known him since ClassII. "A few days before he took the extreme step, he slipped, and a teacher humiliated him. She told him his tears meant nothing and he was acting. That day, he left school a shattered person," the friend said.
Another Class X student said, "We understand the need to be strict, but some teachers have crossed all limits. They threaten us for the smallest reasons." Another boy said Shourya had recently gone into a shell, internalising everything while others coped by confiding in each other.
The protesters said Shourya final wish that his organs should be donated showed he was neither weak nor incapable of reasoning.
A family friend, Swati, spoke of his mother's devastation. "Imagine raising your child from day one till Class X, and then suddenly losing him. She still can't believe that she won't see Shourya again."
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