Hathras: The emergency contact numbers are listed in big fonts. The banner bearing the name of the school is half torn. There is an eerie silence, and the only occasional sound is of the peacocks walking in the nearby fields. Behind the tall yellow gates, is the much-talked-about school in Uttar Pradesh’s Rasgawan village.
The DL Public School—with nearly 600 students on its rolls—stands forlorn after a gruesome murder of a Class 2 student, whose body was found inside a vehicle owned by the school management on 23 September.
The 11-year-old boy is suspected to have been “sacrificed” for school’s success purportedly by those from the management of the private residential school, whose website proclaims: ‘A New Concept Co-Education English Medium School. Hi-Tech School with CBSE Circular.’
Worse, two suspected similar attempts, as part of occult practices, are said to have been made in this month itself. Superintendent of Police, Hathras, Nipun Agarwal confirmed that investigation indicated one of the accused tried to kill a 10-year-old boy. Five people have been arrested so far.
“I wanted him to rise above the backward conditions we have, to study and live in. A residential school would teach him how to be disciplined in life,” a teary-eyed Krishna Kushwaha said.
Like any other parents in this rural part of the country, the Kushwahas enrolled their son to an English medium school for doing better than their previous generations.
Krishna put his 11 year-old-son in DL Public School’s hostel three years ago in spite of the school just being located 6 km away from their house in Tusen village.
The father, who works in a software company in Delhi’s Okhla, wanted his son to be an IAS officer. Little did the Kushwahas know that their dreams would be shattered one summer morning.
“How would a parent ever think that the owners and teachers of the school he has sent his child to study in would kill him?” Krishna said.
Next to him seated is his wife Kamlesh along with their daughter who goes to the same school but is a day student. The five-year-old occasionally tries to wipe off the tears of her mother’s eyes.
Around a fortnight ago, the 11-year-old had come home for the weekend. Krishna would call him every day on the school prinicpal’s phone. On the night of the murder, the son asked him to reachrge Rs 200 on the principal’s phone to be able to make calls home.
The Hathras Police have booked the five arrested people—Dinesh Baghel, his father Jashodhan Singh alias Bhagat, school principal Laxman Singh, teachers Veerpal Singh Baghel, and Ramprakash Solanki—for murder under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
All of their names appear with their photos in the school’s website. Dinesh, the school director, is introduced as an engineer too.
Police sources said that Bhagat had orchestrated the plan along with his son, Dinesh.
“They planned to kill a student as part of an occult ritual. They believed that killing a student would bring glory and success to the school,” a senior police officer told ThePrint.
The police sources said that the school didn’t have a residential permit to run a hostel. Krishna said he paid Rs 1 lakh a year as fees plus extra money for books and extra circulars.
“On 23 September, a student was murdered at the hostel of the school located under the Sahpau police station limits. Five accused have been arrested,” additional superintendent of police (ASP), Hathras, Ashok Kumar Singh had told the media.
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Occult & a ‘Bhagat’
On Monday 5 a.m., Krishna said, he received a call from Dinesh saying his son is unwell. However when he was about to reach the hostel, Baghel asked him to come elsewhere.
“He gave me multiple locations and kept manipulating me for 1 and half hours. He told me they are going to Aligarh, then Agra, etc. I had no idea that my son was already dead by then. Finally at one location, I and some others from the village managed to corner their car and inside my son was lying down motionless. Dinesh and the others ran away. There were injury marks on his neck,” Krishna said, adding that Dinesh was intoxicated when he confronted him.
Once the police were informed, a manhunt was launched. The autopsy revealed asphyxia as the cause of death. The 11-year-old was strangled. According to the police sources, after the murder, the clothes were changed to remove the faecal matter from his clothes.
“Jashodhan is known as Bhagat as he is into tantrism. The entire village knows he is into occult practices,” another source said.
While the Baghels’ house is just 2 km from the school, on some days, the father-son duo would remain there. Some teachers also stayed back along with other staff in the hostel.
“My son studied there for four years, and stayed in the hostel for three years. He never said anything about being beaten up or anything odd happening,” Kamlesh recollected.
According to police sources, the boy was strangled to death around midnight in the intervening night of Sunday and Monday. The teachers were also a part of the conspiracy and were in the hall where the students slept, they said.
“They wanted to get rid of the body but couldn’t do so. In the morning, other children saw the boy and informed the staff. They panicked and left with the boy’s body,” the source said.
The sources said that the Baghels were financially strained and were in debt. They added that the investigating team has collected some evidence from a room behind the school suggestive of the occult practices.
However, the Baghel family vehemently denied that the murder was committed by the five accused and that black magic had anything to do with this. In a huge double storey house, the joint family resides. The school was built and started by Jashodhan Baghel.
“Why will someone who runs a school kill students? The police have pinned the blame on my father and brother just because my father used to practise tantrism,” Binita, Jashodhan’s daughter and Dinesh’s younger sister, said.
According to the Baghel family, Jashodhan alias Bhagat began to dabble with tantrism when his younger brother fell ill. There was a special room designated in their house where he would practise black magic to cure his brother, they said. However, Dinesh’s aunt Meera said Jashodhan stopped occultism some eight years ago after he fell ill.
“The father (Jashodhan) had told them that one student needs to die for prosperity. The others agreed with his plan,” a second police source said.
Murder in the making?
Some local residents believe the 11-year-old would not have died if only the police were alerted about two suspected attempts made on 6 and 18 September.
“Bhagat uncle ji ne mera gala dabaya tha (Bhagat uncle strangled me),” said a 10-year-old boy in Bahardoi village. There are visible marks on his neck.
“On 18 September, I threw the milk. Uncle Bhagat saw me and then grabbed me. He then tried to strangle me. It was 11 pm. Other children had gone to sleep by then but woke up after I screamed,” the boy said.
His mother Neelam told villagers how much she regretted not going to the police after what had happened with her son.
“Dinesh Baghel called my husband and informed him that our son is not well and asked us to take him to the hospital. My husband requested to take the kid to the doctor as we didn’t have a car. Dinesh called us multiple times that day. My son was unconscious when we saw him,” Neelam alleged.
“When we reached home, he told us that Bhagat tried to strangle him. At first we didn’t believe him and thought he was making excuses and got hurt while playing. However, when he kept repeating, we had to believe him. I wish we had mustered the courage to go to the police, the other boy would have been saved.”
The 10-year-old had been staying in the hostel for a year and had been enrolled in the school for the last three years. He stopped going to school after the incident. SP Agarwal confimed that investigation has revealed that Jashodhan had tried to kill this child.
Just 500 m away, another 11-year-old said that a nephew of Jashodhan tried to strangle him. “The nephew used a rope to strangle me but I got away as it was during the day and I screamed,” the 11-year-old said.
His mother Lalita said, “when my husband had called up Dinesh Baghel Friday, he didn’t make us talk to our son and made an excuse. On Saturday when he came home, he told us what had happened”.
Asked about this second instance and if the nephew is a suspect, a senior police officer said, “we questioned him but the story didn’t add up”.
The Hathras SP, meanwhile, said that further investigation was on in the case.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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