This episode of Newstrack focusses on the tragic suicide of a 12-year-old boy in West Bengal who was accused of stealing a chips packet.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Accused of stealing a chips packet 12-year-old takes his life
00:16Shamed publicly took his life
00:23What have we come to as a society that a 12-year-old takes his own life after he
00:51Was wrongly falsely accused of simply stealing a chips packet
00:56You're watching NewsTrack here on India Today
00:59I'm Akshra Tananda Gopal
01:00We're throwing the light on this disturbing incident to ask a larger question
01:04About whether this current generation of youngsters have rather fragile egos
01:10Where unfortunately we're seeing more such incidents of pre-teens
01:13Teens resorting to taking the extreme step of taking their lives over the smallest of reasons
01:19We're going to be talking about this incident and also opening doors to that larger conversation
01:23Let's begin with a quick check of the headlines first
01:27Politics over Operation Sindhuur escalates
01:34Prime Minister says Nehru should have gotten back POK in 1947
01:38Congress hits out a Prime Minister says he's just an actor mouthing dialogues
01:43Jahoon Kashmir chief minister holds key cabinet meeting in Pehelgaam days after the terror attack
01:56Omar Abdullah says terror won't halt progress in the state
02:00India's fifth generation stealth fighter jet project gets the green light
02:10Government approves development of AMCA prototype advanced medium combat jets
02:15Political war of words takes flight over HAL
02:25Karnataka minister claims bid to shift HAL unit from Bengaluru to Andhra Pradesh
02:31Andhra government sources tell India Today that Chandribabu Naidu made no pitch for HAL relocation
02:37Oil spill scare off Kerala coast day after cargo ship capsized
02:4830 containers wash up ashore experts warn of cleanup challenges as eminent chemical hazard threat looms
02:56Now let's get you our top focus story here on news track a 12 year old boy that's right view as a 12 year old boy
03:25Not even a teenager in his preteens died by suicide in West Bengal
03:30He was accused of stealing a packet of chips what I'm showing you is the CCTV footage of that where he picks up a small packet of chips
03:37This young boy was cornered by a group of locals he was publicly humiliated he was slapped he was questioned as to why he picked up that chips packet and in a moment of sheer mental distress under duress he went home took his own life
03:55Details in our report on what happened and the suicide note that this young boy left behind
04:00One packet of chips drove a 12 year old boy to suicide
04:07A class 7 student in West Bengal was subjected to physical assault and public humiliation over accusations of stealing a packet of chips
04:15chips
04:16The child was found unconscious later that day
04:22All he left behind was a half-empty pesticide bottle by him
04:27The child was found unconscious later that day
04:34All he left behind was a half-empty pesticide bottle by his side
04:41All he left behind was a half-empty pesticide bottle by his side
04:45On Thursday evening the boy reportedly entered a shop looking to buy chips
04:50According to his family he called out repeatedly for the shopkeeper
04:53Subhankar Dixit but got no response
04:57The family says he picked up a packet of kurkure from the road thinking it was lying there
05:06Moments later the shopkeeper returned and chased him down
05:10As per the family's police complaint he slapped the child and forced him to do sit-ups in public
05:16The boy's mother was then summoned and she also scolded him in public
05:21Soon after the boy returned home and locked himself in his room
05:28His mother and neighbours later found him unconscious and frothing from the mouth
05:33Even his last note was one last attempt to make his mother believe that he did not steal the chips
05:42The mother says she scolded him under strain
05:45Not realising the emotional distress caused to the boy
05:49His mother is on her side
06:05My mother said we had to take care of her
06:06And the mother was told to tell her
06:09Why are the other one asking for their guards to do
06:14This tragedy raises serious questions about how physical and mental abuse of children has been normalized in Indian society.
06:32It underscores the devastating consequences of public shaming, especially when inflicted on young minds.
06:40The incident has sparked widespread outrage and calls for justice and accountability.
06:48The shopkeeper has denied any assault, but since the boy's death, he's nowhere to be found.
06:55With Anirvan Sina Roy in Kolkata, Bureau Report, India Today.
07:03A heartbreaking really that a young life has been lost in such a manner.
07:08And I just want to put the focus again on the suicide note that we put out in our report earlier.
07:14Because this is heartbreaking.
07:15The little boy, before actually taking that extreme step and just imagine what it takes,
07:20what kind of mental distress you have to take your own life at 12 years old, has written in that suicide note,
07:26I'm not a thief. I did not steal.
07:28Uncle wasn't around. He was referring to the shopkeeper as I waited.
07:32I spotted a kurkure packet lying on the road and picked it up.
07:34I love kurkure.
07:37And this itself tells you how young the boy is.
07:39You look at the kind of messaging.
07:40He's saying that I love these chips.
07:42I saw it on the road.
07:43I picked it up.
07:44I did not steal.
07:45It was over the manner in which he was branded a thief that it seems that this young boy just couldn't take the humiliation
07:52and so ended his life in his home.
07:55This is a larger issue that we're talking about.
07:58That this generation perhaps is far too fragile, that they perhaps lack the resilience that many of us grew up with,
08:05which is why you see many such incidents also happening.
08:08Has it got to do something with social media?
08:11Has it got to do with the current times where, you know, everything is so fickle because you see everything digitally as well?
08:17I want to bring in on this broadcast Mimansa Singh Kanwar, clinical psychologist, who's the head of Photo School of Mental Health program as well.
08:25Thank you very much for your time.
08:28Mimansa, what do you make of this incident?
08:30You know, am I right in saying that this generation perhaps has rather fragile egos?
08:35They're very fearful of judgment?
08:36I think we need to first acknowledge and understand the fact, the dichotomy of insensitivity and highly insensitivity
08:46and highly sensitivity that we are looking at as a reflection of our society.
08:51I think what we need to understand, and if we focus on this particular situation and several other situations that happened,
08:56that we couldn't really look at the innocence of a child over here.
08:59That the need to sort of humiliate and abuse and the trauma to cause to this child was just so overpowering
09:08that everybody around just became a mob to sort of bring in their own emotions attached to it
09:16and just react as a mob to what was happening over there.
09:19And that's what we are turning into our society.
09:21Our emotions are just so heightened and aroused at all times
09:25that we are not able to look at some of the underlying, beneath the innocence,
09:31just the small act of a child which was just so childlike
09:34that we needed to punish this young boy so much.
09:38I think what we need to certainly understand is that, yes, we are not living in simple times.
09:43A lot is being changed with the fact that so much is circulated around,
09:47even in terms of what we see, the visuals of negativity, emotional reactions,
09:53the increasing visibility of these things, the amount they are shared and what it does to us.
10:00That aggression and violence is just becoming such a normalized aspect of our day-to-day life
10:05that we are almost becoming desensitized to this whole thing.
10:09And this should concern us.
10:11This should concern us because this is something that we see on a day-to-day basis.
10:16We see that happening on roads.
10:17We see that happening on workplaces, sometimes even homes.
10:22You know, the small corners, you see the amount of aggression and violence
10:26that we, you know, get to hear through reportage, through videos, through so many other things
10:33that as a society, yes, we are seeing somewhat this increased violence and aggression
10:38that is coming in more and more.
10:40For young people, well, a teenager is a young child.
10:44And for any teenager, for that matter, it is about the love and support that they can find
10:50from the adults around.
10:51So if the child is somewhere subjected to these kinds of episodes every now and then,
10:57where there is harsh punishment, I mean, look at the background that the mother comes from.
11:03She also succumbs to the pressure that is there, you know, sort of starts to, you know,
11:08try to dissolve the situation by not supporting the child but almost becoming a part of it,
11:15not knowing what to do in a situation apart from that.
11:18And so this aspect just brought in a lot of sensitivity and what it may have led the young boy to feel
11:25is what we need to understand.
11:27You know, you spoke of innocence when you first began, when we began this conversation
11:34about the innocence of this little boy.
11:37But accompanying that innocence, which is what is worrying also, ma'am,
11:42that accompanying that innocence is someone here, a young boy,
11:45who's had the kind of maturity to take such a drastic step.
11:50You know, it's not simple to get your mind to actually process taking the step.
11:54Maybe he didn't understand the full meaning of what it meant to take one's life.
11:58But the fact that you're seeing these kind of things happen over an incident like this,
12:03where he's accused of falsely, yes, stealing a chips packet,
12:06where there have been incidents of children taking their lives after getting scolded by their parents
12:11for not doing well in examinations.
12:13I tend to wonder here also whether as a society something's changed in maybe the child's upbringing
12:19or maybe how parents are also dealing with these situations.
12:22So I'm going to segregate into two aspects.
12:26Suicide as one thing, which, yes, statistically has been increasing in our society.
12:31And there are several factors to it.
12:33We need to understand over here, we have to also look at the personality aspect.
12:36We have to look at the factors, whether it is family, whether it is, you know, the school,
12:43the stressors that are there, what has been building up for a person,
12:47young person to take their own lives and deaths happening due to suicide.
12:52It's not just a one-off episode that can happen here and there just out of an impulse
12:58as what we are seeing over here.
12:59I think, yes, what you said, for a young child to understand the intensity of the action
13:04may not be there over here.
13:06What we have to understand that, yes, you know, for a young child to be a bit impulsive
13:12is natural.
13:14Now, in that impulsivity, with whatever emotion that the child is experiencing
13:18might have gone through a certain emotional experience and would have wanted to do something
13:23to sort of, you know, calm themselves, soothe themselves, to get rid of what the child went
13:27through just right now, not knowing where to go, whom to talk to, and may have led to a
13:32certain kind of an episode.
13:33This is, again, just a speculation, but we're trying to understand the emotional experience
13:36of the child, right?
13:38But suicide in itself is a concern.
13:41And yes, what we need to really understand is that how can we prevent something which
13:45is absolutely preventable?
13:46We need to bring in a lot more life skills for young people.
13:50Resilience, yes, is something that is a skill that needs to be instilled in young people.
13:55How to regulate our emotions, how to look at stressors as an aspect of our life that we
14:01need to come out and deal with on a day-to-day basis.
14:04And a part of that dealing is also the support system.
14:07The strong support system that needs to come from family, that needs to come from schools,
14:12from teachers, even from peers, which requires a lot of sensitization, and which is why I
14:18continue to talk about mental health curriculum in schools.
14:21Even parents need to be made aware of it.
14:24Schools across India must talk about mental health-related aspects and life skills that has
14:29been happening, no doubt about the fact schools have been talking about life skills, but it
14:33needs to be more than the tick of the box.
14:35And education in that case needs to...
14:35No, I completely agree with you that, you know, there is a need to focus more on mental
14:40health for even pre-teens.
14:42We very often talk about, you know, adolescents needing it.
14:46But I think at this stage, pre-teens are also very important that they get that kind of access
14:51to ensuring, you know, that they have awareness about ensuring mental peace and also stability
14:58in that sense.
14:59But my final question to you also, ma'am, is about whether social media has played a big
15:03role in how children react to these kind of incidents when compared to how it used to
15:08be versus now.
15:09It's difficult to make a direct correlation in that sense.
15:13But yes, if we talk about, you know, young people, they learn through observation.
15:19This is a known fact.
15:20It's an established fact.
15:21There are multiple researches on the aspect of kids learning through observation.
15:26And the immediate observation is where they pick things from.
15:29The most common being the family and then the schools.
15:33But yes, in today's time, because social media has also gotten into our lives so much intrusive,
15:39space that it has taken, that yes, we can also look at that it could be contributing
15:44in several ways in terms of, you know, shaping their own identity and their own way of reactions
15:49and other things.
15:50But to say that there is a direct correlation, that's difficult to sort of, you know, establish
15:54that to that extent.
15:56Okay.
15:56Okay.
15:57All right.
15:57Mimansal Singh Tanwar, thank you very much for your time.
16:00And I think for all of our viewers listening to this, parents particularly will be definitely
16:05taking note of the kind of message that you sent across the board, the need to also listen
16:11to children and ensure that you kind of read into what their mood is, the pattern of the
16:18moods that you're seeing essentially, and perhaps not being so harsh on children.
16:23In this particular incident, the child was publicly humiliated.
16:27He was assaulted publicly, slapped clearly, as seen in that CCTV footage, even by his own
16:32mother, who was seen scolding him, not believing him, and he kept saying, I didn't steal that
16:36packet of chips.
16:37And so that drove him towards taking that extreme step.
16:40And unfortunate, really heartbreaking, but like I said, perhaps another indicator of so
16:45many such incidents that we've been seeing across the country, across the world as well.
16:55And let's move on, talk about a disturbing incident that was reported from Haryana, a mass
17:01suicide, or so it seems, based on the preliminary investigation.
17:05Seven members of a family died allegedly by suicide in Panchkula in Haryana.
17:12Their bodies were found inside that particular vehicle, inside that car, and all of them decided
17:18to consume poison, take their lives as they were seated in this car together.
17:22Why?
17:22Because they faced heavy deaths because of financial losses.
17:26Details in our report first.
17:31An abandoned Hyundai car parked outside a house in Panchkula.
17:43Inside the car were six bodies.
17:47Another member of the family was declared brought dead to the hospital.
17:53All members of the same family.
17:56The case from Haryana, similar to Delhi's Burari mass suicide, has sent shockwaves across the
18:04country.
18:06The deceased have been identified as 42-year-old Praveen Mittal, his wife, Praveen's father,
18:14Deshraj Mittal, and his mother.
18:17And their three children, including two teenage daughters and a son.
18:22Hailing from Barwala in Hisar, Praveen had shifted to Panchkula 12 years ago.
18:33He owned a scrap factory in Himachal Pradesh, which was seized by the bank due to unpaid loans.
18:40The neighbors say that the family was humble and very courteous.
18:46Whenever they meet someone, they were very jovial and they used to meet people regularly.
18:53Neighbors also believe that they were under some crisis.
18:56Their mother, the mother of Praveen Mittal, was not well.
19:01Thereafter, it could have been the reason that they were under debt.
19:04However, no evidence has come to light from Dehradun that they were reeling under debt and that was the cause of their suicide.
19:15Praveen was now driving a taxi to make both ends meet.
19:20His financial troubles are being cited as the reason behind the alleged mass suicide.
19:27The family had visited Panchkula on Monday to attend a religious sermon by Bageshwar Dham's Baba, Dhirendra Shastri.
19:38Later, the entire family was found dead inside a car parked near a house in Sector 27.
19:47One of the localite who saw them, that the car is being covered by the towels and the clothes.
19:55They even tried to open the windows, tried to communicate who is sitting in the car.
20:00So they found that six of them are vomiting.
20:03They seem to be unconscious and they informed the police.
20:07It's been told that a total of 15 to 20 crores debt that was Praveen Mittal struggling with.
20:14The police recovered a two-page note from the vehicle, which claimed that the family was bankrupt and heavily in debt.
20:27The bodies were later shifted to a mocha.
20:57a bitch at the civil hospital for post-mortem.
21:27read, write, write.
21:28It was a lot of money.
21:29Police are now trying to find out the extent of the family's financial troubles.
21:39They're also speaking to relatives and neighbours to piece together the events that led to this
21:45tragedy.
21:48Ankit Kumar in Dehradun and Aman Bharadwaj in Panchkula, Bureau Report, India Today.
22:00So a suicide note was found in which this family of seven said we had no other option, no
22:07other way out.
22:08But the fact that you had seven members of a family ensuring their death simultaneously
22:14dying by suicide, of course, throws back and gives you a grim reminder of what happened
22:18in 2018, the Burari deaths, one of the most bone-chilling cases that Delhi had seen, where
22:24in that case, you had 11 members of a family in Delhi's Burari region, all dying by suicide,
22:30found hanging, blindfolded and with hands and feet tied.
22:34Now, while in this Panchkula case, the family in the suicide note has said very clearly that
22:39this was something that they had no option to do because of the extreme debt.
22:44They were in, in the Burari case, there was a three-year-long investigation and it seemed
22:50to be some sort of ritual that led to the family taking their lives.
22:55We throw back to 2018, take you through what happened in the Burari case.
23:0011 lives snuffed out almost at the same time, a complete family caught up in a twisted ritual
23:05and ended up dead.
23:0611 lives snuffed out almost at the same time.
23:12A complete family caught up in a twisted ritual and ended up dead.
23:19More proof that it was a mass suicide than a case of homicide.
23:25On that fateful night, the elder daughter-in-law, Savitha and her daughter-in-law, Savitha,
23:32Neetu are seen bringing stools later used to deadly effects.
23:39Police are claiming...
23:40Police are claiming that they were following a gall Popular
24:01effects.
24:07Police are claiming that these images are clinching evidence that there was a plan in
24:14place for the deadly ritual and no outsider was involved in it.
24:22Lalit Bhatia, whose love for penning down his diabolical agenda, has given investigators
24:28a window into how the grisly plan unfolded.
24:33His latest death manual is the final volume in this deadly family saga.
24:40The last entry in the 11th diary is devoid of any emotion and to the point.
24:49Written on a day before the final act, it lays out step-by-step plan that culminated in a
24:56deadly wipeout of the Bhatia family.
25:03The instructions are given under a title, Road to God.
25:08Lalit claimed that his dead father wanted nine people on the iron mesh.
25:14Widowed sister must be standing on a stool near a mandir.
25:20Order food at 10 pm.
25:22Mother will feed roti.
25:25Kriya, final act to be performed at 1 am.
25:31Kriya to be performed during intervening night of Saturday or Sunday.
25:35Wet clothes must be stuffed in mouth and hands tied.
25:40Use cotton buds to close ears.
25:43The chilling last line, keep water in a cup.
25:47I will appear and save when colour changes.
25:53Members of the Bhatia family showed unusual calmness hours before they took part in the ritual.
26:02Lalit's elder brother Bhavesh is seen opening his shop in the morning.
26:08The images defy what is about to follow at night.
26:14Later, we can also see Priyanka and her mother going for a morning walk.
26:30There is no hint of nervousness as the mother-daughter duo are seen walking briskly.
26:40In the afternoon, the brains behind the operation, Lalit is seen at a mobile shop.
26:49Finally, images that show how the plan was put in effect.
26:55Savita and her daughter, Neetu, calm and composed, carrying stools to be used for hanging.
27:07The death was imminent.
27:11Tragedy was knocking on their doors.
27:16Lalit's diary claimed that his father will save them.
27:21But their extreme step left no chances for the Bhatia family to survive the deadly ritual.
27:37And so many questions still loom over that incident that took place in 2018.
27:43The Burari deaths, which made headlines, of course, nationally through the year.
27:47That's all we have time for in this edition of Newstruck.
27:49Thanks very much for tuning in.
27:50Thanks very much for tuning in.