According to one of its members on Saturday, the Rajasthan State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has not yet decided whether the nine-year-old Dalit boy’s death in the Jalore district was due to caste-based discrimination. The state government will receive the report of its findings on Monday.
Indra Kumar Meghwal, a Class III student at Saraswati Vidhya Mandir in Surana Village, is said to have been physically attacked by his teacher Chail Singh on July 20 for touching a drinking water pot. On August 14, he passed away from his injuries in a hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
When visiting Surana village in Jalore on August 17, RSCPCR member Shiv Bhagwan Naga heard from other students that Meghwal and another student had been hit by teacher Singh for ‘fighting over a drawing book,’ which left Meghwal with damage to his ear and eye.
‘I visited the boy’s school and home. I spoke to many of the students, teachers and local people apart from the family. While most of the students ruled out any caste-based discrimination and separate drinking water arrangement in the school, Meghwal’s cousin said the teacher thrashed him because he drank water from the pot after lunch,’ he told PTI.
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