Lavanya, the victim, died of suicide on Thursday (January 20). In a post she alleged that her school, Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School, was forcing her to convert to Christianity.
Lavanya, a 17-year-old student at Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School, Thanjavur, was like any other girl of her age, full of dreams and life.
Even she did not know that she would not be able to celebrate her 18th birthday. On January 20, she died in hospital after battling for her life for 10 days. She had consumed poison on January 9 as she could not bear more pressure from the school to convert to Christianity.
In a video, which has since gone viral on different social media platforms, the victim could be heard saying “They (school) asked my parents in my presence, if they can convert me to Christianity, they would help her for further studies. Since I didn’t accept, they kept torturing me.”
Rather than questioning the school and church for the forced conversion bid, many main stream media organisations (MSM) questioned the veracity of the viral video.
This angered many social media users.
The victim’s mother got angry with the reporters repeatedly trying to project that the dying declaration of the victim was manipulated. She said, “Do you want to say what she said in her dying declaration is false?”
One Twitter user Mahesh (@Mahesh10816) posted “When a Christian child fell into a borewell pit and unfortunately lost his life, the Tamil media gave 24 X 7 coverage and dampened Deepawali celebrations for millions. The same media is in constipation mode when a poor Hindu girl #Lavanya died due to harassment by missionaries.”
Advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha posted “The parents of 17 years old #Lavanya who died because she was pressurised for conversion. Can we talk about it? Because their ecosystem is trying to question the girl, divert the attention and hide this issue.”
Former ABVP National President Dr. Subbiah Shanmugam said, “Poor girls like Lavanya need adequate food & shelter, facilities for good education & healthcare. They don’t need nasty lessons on religious conversions.”
Asking the Tamil Nadu police to focus on the suicide of the victim, rather than wasting their time on who shot the video, the Madras High Court said, “The respondent police are restrained from harassing the person who had taken the video of the child, in which she is found making an allegation that she was called upon to convert to Christianity. The focus of the police authorities should be on the circumstances that led to the suicide of the child and it cannot be directed against the person who had taken the video.”
The dying statement of victim Lavanya, recorded in writing by the police, and the FIR registered by the police, explicitly state that she was tortured by her hostel warden Sagaya Mary, forced by the warden to do her personal work, which was the reason for her attempting suicide on January 9.
The Madras High Court asked the victim’s parents to appear before the Thanjavur Judicial Magistrate and record their statements. It also directed the parents to receive the victim’s body for performing last rites.
