(If you feel suicidal or know someone in distress, please reach out to them with kindness and call these numbers of local emergency services, helplines, and mental health NGOs.)
Three days after a school student allegedly died by suicide at her home in Chennai's Mangadu on Saturday, 18 December, a college student has been arrested on the charges of sexual harassing the deceased minor.
The accused had been a senior to the 17-year-old girl in her previous school, and the two had developed an amicable relationship over Instagram, reported The Indian Express, citing the police.
"The boy has confessed to a physical relationship with the minor girl. In the last two weeks, he had been harassing and torturing her. We have located filthy messages and the exchange of photographs. They had a good friendly relationship for eight months before all this," a police officer told NDTV.
In a purported suicide note, the teenager had written that her school was not a safe place and that even teachers and relatives could not be trusted. "Every parent should teach their kids and sons (to treat) girls with respect," reads the letter, which is headlined with "Stop Sexual Harassment."
The letter further says that "a girl is safe only in the mother's womb or the grave."
The alleged perpetrator has been charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and under section 4 of Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Act, as well as section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police is probing the case to determine if more people had harassed the minor, as her suicide note suggests.
Suicides in India rose 10 percent from 2019 to an all-time high of 1,53,052 in 2020, as per the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
(With inputs from NDTV and The Indian Express)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)