A teen-aged school kid from Bampalapitiya Hindu College has committed suicide after being verbally abused and humiliated in front of the entire batch of students by his teacher named Sothilingam, who is popular in Colombo in the commerce circuit.

The boy was a studious student who had been consistently among the top two students of his batch at his school. According to his friends and family, he was a very sensitive boy and had been suffering from depression for a few years.

Ironically, he had gotten into depression after being made to kneel for four hours in the school playground for being late to school. He had missed his morning train that day.

The whole of Hindu College, including Sothilingam, had known that the boy was depressed and had been taking medications. And Sothilingam verbally abused him despite being wise to this fact.

Sothilingam has a history of violently attacking and verbally abusing students. In fact, it is said that there are several complaints against him in the Human Rights Commission. He had actually been transfered from Royal College after brutally assaulting a student there.

He had also assaulted a student for not attending his private tuition class before. The victim's friends claim that Sothilingam had made a habit of humiliating the victim in front of his friends just to entertain the rest of the class.

On the fateful day, Sothilingam had asked the victim for his marks and the victim had made a mistake when conveying his marks. In response, Sothilingam had told the victim that if he continued to make such mistakes, he would end up marrying his mother-in-law instead of his fiancé

He had also told him that even if he got married, his wife would elope with his neighbor. The boy was seen crying in the hall after the incident and ended his life a few days later after telling his family that the school was a hell for him.

On the one hand, you have a serial victim of abuse, and on the other hand, you have a serial abuser who has been managing to go scot free. This only betrays the fundamental flaw in the academic culture of this country. There is absolutely no legal recourse for the victims.

Teachers, lecturers, and professors in this country, assault, abuse, bully and drive students towards suicide on a daily basis with impunity. The culture of impunity can clearly be seen in the fact that despite having several complaints against Sothilingam,

Sothilingam didn't feel the need to reform himself.

And having been a student of that school, I can say in no uncertain terms that Hindu College, like many other schools in Sri Lanka, has a problem of violence against students.

I have had teachers proudly brag about how they broke students' arms in the past. I have seen teachers venting their anger stemming from their feuds with their spouse by assaulting students. I have seen teachers bully very young students just to boost their puny egos.

No action was taken against them and even if someone was brave enough to take the culprit to task, they were emotionally mollified by alluding to their apparent respectability in the society. In other words, the teachers have been hiding their crimes behind the respect

the society affords them.

Sothilingam, an expert criminal who seems to have mastered the art of evading the law, is now spinning a rumor that the boy committed suicide over a love affair. This is according to his friends.

His friends, who are all first-hand witnesses to the incident, have written this letter of complaint to the principal. They want Sothilingam to be fired. But he cannot get away with just a slap on the wrist. He should be behind bars.

It looks like there is an effort to brush this issue under the carpet. The carpet should be pulled from under their feet. The injustice meted out to this young student should be told to the whole world to hear. Here is an hour-long video describing the whole incident.