15-Year-Old Boy Dead After Allegedly Being Thrashed By Teacher For Making Small Mistake In Class Test

A 15-year-old boy has been reported dead after he was allegedly brutally thrashed by his teacher for making a small mistake during a class test in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India on Monday, Sept. 26.

The teenage boy, identified as Nikhit Dohre, a tenth-grade student, studied at a government school Adarsh Inter College in Auraiya, Lucknow. Dohre's Social Science teacher Ashwani Singh reportedly administered a test in his class on Sept. 7. During the test, even though Dohre had prepared a lot for the exam, the teen accidentally made a small mistake and misspelled a word, NDTV reported.

Singh, who reportedly belongs to the upper caste, allegedly felt enraged and grabbed the lower-caste boy by the hair and beat him mercilessly with a stick and also kicked him till he fell unconscious on the ground inside the classroom.

The boy was later taken to a private hospital for treatment. A video that was shot by the boy's family members was shared hours after the alleged assault. The video shows the boy lying on what appears to be a stretcher, with his eyes swollen, and the teen barely conscious.

When the boy regained consciousness, he reportedly had difficulty in breathing and suffered internal injuries. Even though he was treated at several hospitals for weeks, he died in an ambulance while he was being transferred to the UP University of Medical Sciences in Saifai, Etawah for treatment on Monday, Sept. 26.

"When we came to know of the beating, we reached the school. We were threatened by the teacher. Later, when we protested the college principal intervened and assured us that the teacher Ashwani would take care of the medical treatment. The child was admitted to a private hospital in Etawah and an expense of US$491(40,000 Indian Rupees) was met by the teacher," the boy's father Raju Dogre said.

Raju added that the teacher stopped receiving his phone calls and also allegedly hurled caste-specific slurs at them when they approached him later, the Times Of India reported.

Following the incident, the teacher, who remains at large, faces charges under IPC (Indian Penal Code) Sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), as well as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

"Now, after the death of the child, more sections of IPC will be added. Strict action will be taken into the matter," Auraiya superintendent of police Auraiya Charu Nigam said.

Meanwhile, Auraiya district inspector of schools Chandrashekhar Malviya said that orders have been given to the college manager to suspend the teacher at the earliest.