TORONTO: Toronto Police have yet found no answer to the mysterious death of a 12-year-old Indian school boy here. The boy’s body was found on June 21 in a Toronto neighbourhood.
“Investigation is open and I have no definite answers,’’ said the shattered 39-year-old single mother from India, who came here as an immigrant from Bengaluru in March 2018.
“I came to Canada to give him a better life because he faced discrimination in school and locality in Bengaluru – because of me being a single mother. Now I have nothing left. Woh mera sab kuchh thaa. He was topper in his class,’’ said the mother, choking back her tears.
“The school’s action in not preventing bullying has been horrible. Was it racism? I don’t know,’’ said the Bengali mother who still holds an Indian passport.
The boy’s body was found on the evening of June 21 in a pathway near a neighboring apartment building where he had gone to meet a classmate.
“At about 7 pm, my son went to see his classmate, saying he will be back soon. At about 8.50 pm when I went to our living room, I found his notebook – which was not there when we were calling his friend’s mother – containing a suicide note,’’ she said.
One hour later, she saids, police came to show her a piece of a jacket and a CCTV footage to confirm whether it was her son. “I confirmed and they asked me to come with them to Sick Kids Hospital. They said: Your son didn’t make it. When I saw my son’s face, there was no injury mark on it. But there was blood in his mouth.’’
Asked whether the suicide note was in her son’s hand writing, she said she was too panicked to notice it.
The boy’s suspicious death was preceded by months of bullying in school by two classmates, according to the mother.
“My son became their classmate when we moved to our current neighborhood in May 2018. While I was away at work, the two boys used to come to our home with my son to play computer games. They started telling my son not to inform me (mother) about what he was doing.’’
She said when she came to know about it she restricted her son’s contacts with the two boys and put him in after-school activities so that he didn’t come home immediately after school.
“In revenge, the two boys started bullying my son. It took an ugly turn when my son asked one of the bullies on October 25 to return the table tennis that he had lost. He was threatened on his way to the school and in the school. When my son reported it to the vice principal, he ended up being kicked in the stomach by one of the bullies.’’
After this incident, she said she met the school principal who assured full safety for her son.
“But the bullying continued unabated. Just two days before his death, my son was punched by one of the bullies and called SOB during supervised lunch. But the vice principal didn’t hold the bully responsible for hitting my son who got a swollen lip.’’
As if constant bullying wasn’t enough, she said, her son was implicated with stealing a classmate’s Nintendo console just two days before his death.
“The console was given to my son by one of the bullies as a conciliatory gesture in the presence of two classmates. But when my son found out in school that the stolen console belonged to a fellow classmate, he came home and returned it to him. But the parents of the boy whose console was stolen and the vice principal wanted my son to admit that he was guilty of stealing. He refused because he had two witnesses to prove his innocence. Why the parents and the vice president did this to my son?’’
