A killer school and a broken dream

In Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, a 10-year-old boy was allegedly killed as part of a ‘sacrificial ritual’ by the owners of the school he studied in. Other students at the now-shut institution share stories of physical assault and fear. The family of one of the accused men though denies any occult belief, finds Samridhi Tewari

Updated - October 04, 2024 07:39 am IST

D. L. Public School in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, where a child was allegedly killed as a part of an occult sacrifice.

D. L. Public School in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, where a child was allegedly killed as a part of an occult sacrifice. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The search for his 10-year-old son, Kritarth, took Krishna Kushwaha, 32, on a three-hour chase across 50 km — from Sadabad to Khandauli and Agra, and back to Sadabad — only to find his body, which had several disturbing marks, inside a car. “When I saw my son, I did not know if I should be angry, or raging, or crying, or holding the people who killed him accountable, or calling the police. I kept checking for his breath,” Krishna says, in Tursain village, Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh.

Later, the U.P. police arrested Dinesh Baghel, the owner of D.L. Public School; his father, Jasodhan Singh; the school principal, Laxman Singh; and two teachers, Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh. An FIR was registered under Section 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

According to the police, Jasodhan believes in ‘tantric rituals’ and the killing was a “sacrificial ritual” to bring prosperity to the school and his family. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Hathras, Ashok Kumar Singh, says Jasodhan asked Baghel to sacrifice a child for this purpose. A senior police officer says the school had run into financial trouble and Baghel had taken a loan.

The last conversation Krishna had with Kritarth was on the afternoon of September 22, the day he was killed. “He called from his principal’s phone and asked for ₹200. He wanted to have milk and chocolate powder,” he says, adding that his son would call once every couple of days.

Gathered on the veranda of a roughly painted house in Tursain, the joint family of 10 members, mostly farm labourers, has been mourning the child’s alleged murder for 10 days now. Here, men sit on one side; the women, their faces covered with a ghunghat (veil), sit on another. The men do the talking. Some women in the inner courtyard go about their daily chores.

In the past, Hathras has made the national news for the gang rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in 2020 and in mid-2024 for a stampede at a public meeting held by a ‘godman’, in which over 120 people lost their lives. As per data from the National Crime Records Bureau, Uttar Pradesh had recorded the highest number of crimes in the country at over four lakh in 2022.

A child is killed

D.L. Public School in Sadabad, 6 km from the Kushwaha home, can be reached down a narrow dirt track. At dusk, there is a lone bike making its way along the dusty stretch. After sunset, villagers don’t take this path as there are no street lights. The school is locked now, barred to all, its ground and first floors deserted, shadowy.

Kritarth had been studying in the school for four years and lived in the hostel on the premises for three years. His younger sister had also joined the school. His family paid ₹1 lakh per child for books, hostel accommodation, and education.

On September 22, Kritarth, like the other students, went to sleep in their hostel dormitory, the police say. Around 10.30 p.m., Jasodhan, Solanki, and Baghel allegedly took the sleeping boy to a secluded tube well behind the school. Later, the police would find a rope and some religious pictures that they claim point to occult practices.

“While preparing for the ritual, the student woke up and began shouting and crying. To avoid any suspicion, they strangulated him,” a police source says. The post-mortem report confirmed this. To avoid suspicion, the accused created a diversion, the police say.

On September 23, a Monday, Krishna was getting ready to take the bus to Noida, about three hours away. He worked in Delhi’s Okhla and would come home for the weekend. Around 5 a.m., he received a call. It was Baghel. “He called me and said Kritarth was sick, and he was taking him to a hospital. I told him I’d come, but by the time I reached the school, they had left with my son to Sadabad.” Just as Krishna and his brother were riding towards Sadabad, they were informed that the child was being taken to Agra. “That is when I felt something was wrong. They seemed to be running away,” he says.

A child returning from school in Tursain village, where the family of the boy who was found dead lives.

A child returning from school in Tursain village, where the family of the boy who was found dead lives. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

After three hours of riding up and down the road looking for some sign of a car with his son, Krishna intercepted the vehicle on recognising Baghel. He found his son in the back seat of the car. Kritarth’s school bag, which his parents had recently bought, was next to his body.

Krishna does not buy the police’s occult practice theory. “Who believes in all that these days? My son was marked out and killed.”

A family is bereft

For Krishna, schooling is important. He is the first in his family to receive a formal technical education, enabling him to work in the IT sector. Most people in Tursain village are farm labourers or dairy farmers. His brother had encouraged Krishna’s education after he showed promise in school. “I wanted my son to study in an English-medium school in a good environment. All the dreams I had for myself, I wanted my children to fulfil. I thought he’ll learn English; it will change his life,” Krishna says.

They picked a residential school to teach Kritarth discipline, and the father says there were “many improvements” in his routine. He did not know then that a part of the school was allegedly being run illegally.

While Krishna speaks about the ordeal, his wife, Kamlesh, 30, is quiet. She was married at a young age in Etah and wasn’t given a school education. When she finally speaks, her words are soft and garbled from behind the ghunghat. Then, she lifts it an inch and asks clearly what had happened to her son.

Family of the deceased boy.

Family of the deceased boy. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

“Why did they attack my son? Why did nobody raise an alarm? If he cried, why did nobody stop them? How did they kill him? What was the motive? Was nobody scared of strangling him to death? How was this school running illegally? How many more lives are at risk?” she says.

The other women surround her, offering water, food, and a few comforting words. She says she cannot understand how she could lose her child. Kritarth would have turned 11 this month.

Children speak out

In Bahardoi village, about 4 km from Tursain, two families say they are still reeling from the realisation that their children had a narrow escape. Students say physical assault was common in the school. Teachers would slap them and even beat them with sticks.

A senior police officer in Hathras says earlier in September, a 11-year-old boy from the school was allegedly attacked in a similar manner. His mother, Neelam, says she got her son admitted to the school three years ago and there had been no complaints. But on September 6, her husband received multiple calls between 10.30 p.m. and 11 p.m., when Baghel kept calling him to say that his son’s health was deteriorating as he had fever.

“We got worried, so we went to the school. They told us to take him to hospital as he was unconscious. His face was red and eyes bloodshot. The hospital said someone had tried to strangle him,” says Neelam. Her son has recovered now, though the marks on his neck remain. When his parents tried to meet the school principal, their requests were allegedly ignored. “I should have reported the matter to the police then,” she says.

Neelam’s neighbour’s son also claimed to have had this experience. His grandmother, Munni Devi, says, “My grandson told me one of Baghel’s relatives tried to strangle him with a rope. We got scared and didn’t send him to school.” They too did not file a police complaint. Both families allege that physical abuse was rampant in school.

Munni Devi says how her grandson was also assaulted in the same school.

Munni Devi says how her grandson was also assaulted in the same school. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

A ‘school’ stands silent

Situated in the midst of a field, with no human settlement in over a 1.5-km radius, Jasodhan’s family had opened the school in 2021 on Baghel’s suggestion. A yellow gate stands tall, with a flex carrying the school’s name claiming to be affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, one of the agencies governing school education in India. Within, there is a lawn and trees.

Once the incident hit media headlines, the U.P. government’s Basic Education Officer in the Education Department in Hathras, Swati Bharti, swung into action. She issued an order for the school to shut down, claiming it was functioning illegally as it ran Classes 1 to 8 though it only had permission to start Classes 1 to 5. “The hostel was also operating illegally,” Bharti says.

Meanwhile, a couple of kilometres from the school is Jasodhan’s house. Some 20 women with ghunghats and 30 children surround a sofa where Baghel’s sisters, Krishna, 22, and Vinita, 24, sit.

“Whatever happened was wrong. Dinesh bhaiya (brother) wasn’t involved in any murder, and my father never practised tantrism. This is a fake narrative being spread,” Vinita says. Jasodhan is a religious man, his family says.

They say Baghel brought the idea of an English-medium school to the area. “The closest English-medium school is 15 km away. He had studied in Roorkee and wanted to change the dreams of children here,” Vinita continues.

The family says ₹2.5 crore to ₹3 crore was spent to build the school during the COVID-19 lockdown and several loans were taken. There were 700-750 children in day school and 24 in the hostel. The teachers were hired from Mathura, Sadabad, and Agra.

‘Worried about children’s future’

In the afternoon, there is no one in the fields. Two men in an e-rickshaw, with banners of another private “English-medium” school, do the rounds of the areas near D.L. Public School. There is a speaker on top of the low-powered vehicle and they go from village to village. The men say in the wake of the incident, they have been asked to get more admissions. The ‘opportunity’ of commerce is not to be missed.

But in the villages from where children went to D.L. Public School, parents are worried about their children’s future. While some are terrified of the murder and aren’t sure if they want their children back in any school immediately, others have enrolled their children in government schools, which have either low or no fees. Parents are concerned about what their children will learn though, given the reputation of government schools in many areas in India.

The 2022 Annual Status of Education Report brought out by Pratham, a non-profit organisation, found that while 38.5% of students from private schools in Class 3 in U.P. could read a Class 2 textbook, only 16.4% of students from government schools in the same class could do so.

Krishna Kushwaha’s neighbour admitted her son to a private school despite the incident as she was scared he wouldn’t get a seat. Meanwhile, in other villages, parents are worried about the money they have lost at D.L. Public School.

However, the Education Department has set up a control room to contact parents whose children studied in the school. It has also issued directions to all private and government schools within a 5 km radius of the village to admit children from the school.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.