16 year old Surjit Singh wrote a love poem in praise of an older girl. The problem was the girl was an “upper caste girl” and such cross-caste appreciation is taboo in India.
“When the teacher came to know about the Surjit’s love poem, he caned him till he almost dropped dead.” said one of Surjit’s fellow students. If that wasn’t enough the day after he was “thrashed in front of other students by an upper caste teacher” he was beaten to death by members of the girl’s family.
The schools headmaster pleaded ignorance about the tragedy saying “he was out of school on the day of the incident”. The teacher has been but on leave and is “inaccessible”. No charges have been filed and the boy’s father, Telu Ram, is to poor to pursue the case on his own.
Story in the India Times