The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is sending a team to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu to investigate M. Lavanya’s suicide case, criticizing the Tamil Nadu government for failing to respond in the “forced conversion” case of the deceased. The committee will be led by Chairperson Priyank Kanongo and will visit the Thanjavur district on the 30th and 31st of January to learn more about the case’s facts. The NCPCR will attend a meeting with the parents of a deceased girl, her classmates, the doctor who treated her before her death, and the doctor who performed the deceased’s post-mortem.
The 7-year-old child said in a taped confession that her school was pressuring her to convert to Christianity and that she had been tormented for refusing to forsake Hinduism. The authorities and the media, on the other hand, are attempting to obscure the case’s conversion element by alleging that the girl committed suicide because the school had required her to perform some routine duties.
According to the NCPCR statement, a complaint was received by the Commission alleging that the minor girl was forced to illegally convert to Christianity and that, as a result of opposing this conversion, the girl was subjected to corporal punishment, refused to go home, and was forced to clean toilets and wash dishes, among other things. As a result of the tragedies she had witnessed, the kid committed suicide by swallowing chemicals, they added.
Meanwhile, the NCPCR team also revealed that the Tamil Nadu govt officials are hesitant to provide information to the child rights organization. Their reluctance to extend necessary support to the NCPCR team has forced them to visit the location to take the investigate further. It is also being alleged that instead of investigating the girl’s charges, the police attempted to investigate the person who had taped her testimony, following which the Madras High Court ordered the police to concentrate on the matter. S Muruganantham, the girl’s father, said in court that the Thanjavur police were attempting to protect the culprits who tortured his daughter to force her to convert to Christianity.
