The Tanjavur Girl was a 17-year-old class 12 student staying in a Christian boarding house called St. Michael’s Girls’ Home in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India.
Incidents that Led to the Tanjavur Girl’s Suicide
On January 9, 2022, she was admitted to a hospital after she started vomiting and complaint of severe stomach pain. Her father who lived in Ariyalur was informed about her condition on 10 January. Reportedly the Tanjavur Girl had consumed insecticide on her school campus. After she was better, she was released. Her parents gave a complaint to the police on January 15, 2022, with no mention of conversion, and an FIR was registered under sec of abetment to suicide & JJ Act.
She also told the police that she was forced by the hostel warden to clean rooms and toilets on the school campus and this was distressing her.
There were two videos that emerged during the time of her death that led to controversies, causing her suicide that ignited an anti-Christian rant along with forced conversion allegations. One was her dying statement where someone is seen prompting her, and asking her questions on her dying moments. That video was later released on social media.
One question she was asked pointedly was “Did they try to convert you?” She replied, “Two years ago”. In fact, in the video, the Tanjavur Girl can be heard saying that two years ago, a woman named Raquel Mary had asked her to convert to Christianity, and she and her parents had refused.
“They (school officials) had asked my parents in my presence if they can convert me to Christianity and help me for further studies. Since I did not accept, they kept scolding me,” the Tanjavur Girl could reportedly be heard saying in Tamil in the aforementioned video.
When asked if they were torturing her because she did not convert, she replied vaguely, “Maybe.”
The Tanjavur Girl lamentably died around ten days later at a medical facility on January 19, death raisng a political right-wing storm with heavy Twitter trends crying justice for her justice.
Notably, the warden Sagayamary has been arrested.
The Tanjavur Girl’s Family History:
The Tanjavur Girl’s own mother committed suicide 10 years ago and her mother is her stepmother. Sources reveal that the Tanjavur Girl suffered untouchability and ill-treatment from her stepmother because she had vitiligo, and thus she was enrolled in a boarding school. The Tanjavur Girl, in fact, did not want to go home during the Pongal holidays due to her turbulent family life which was perhaps intensified with the school warden tormenting her, which triggered her to suicide to drink pesticides.
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https://t.co/tBBYXxz8b2 — Savin Santhosh (@savin_995) January 25, 2022
Justice G.S. Swaminathan is hearing a plea by the Tanjavur Girl’s father for CB-CID probe into the case. On Monday, the judge was told by the investigating officer that the video was taken by a man named Muthuvel. Saying that it was necessary to confirm whether the voice in the video was indeed the Tanjavur Girl, the judge said that Muthuvel should appear before the investigating officer.
According to The News Minute, the investigating officer told the court on Monday that 37 witnesses, including school staff, students and a nurse, are to be questioned in the case, of whom 14 have already been questioned. To determine the veracity of the video, the court was told, the police need the device in question. In response, the court asked the person in question to submit the phone.
The court has directed the investigating officer to file a report by January 27 on the authenticity of the video after the forensic test. The case will be heard again on January 28.
What did her parents say? The Tanjavur Girl’s father, S Muruganantham, told the Madras High Court that the police were trying to implicate the person who had recorded the video. He said that the cops were trying to protect the perpetrators who tortured his daughter for conversion. “We have lost our daughter but we do not want the same to happen with anyone else’s child,” the girl’s mother separately told reporters.
There is no mention of conversion in 3 videos here.
The death of a student in Tamil Nadu has become the reason to create communal tension. But what is the full truth? The VHP man shot 3 videos of Thanjavur student, no mention of conversion in new video. Also, did he delete this from his phone? https://t.co/DkzlLv0DXI — Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) January 27, 2022
A new video is emerging that the Tanjavur Girl flatly refused she was forced to convert.
Thread : Sources : TN BJP Leader @annamalai's claim busted. in a freshly released video of the Thirukkatruppalli girl, the girl flatly refuses harassment on forced religious conversion. In the four minute video the girl says she was never asked to remove Sindhoor 1/4 — Savukku_Shankar (@savukku) January 27, 2022
Reasons Why It is Busted as a Fake Claim of Forced Conversion Made by BJP Tamil Nadu
1. There is no mention of conversion, even by her family when they made the first information report to the police in their statement.
2. A new video emerged where BJP Leader’s fake claim is busted where the Tanjavur Girl flatly refuses harassment on forced religious conversion.
3. The Tanjavur Girl is heard being prompted by someone who keeps asking her about conversion and she says, “maybe”. If she was forced to convert and that was the main issue, she would have said it first.
4. Her family history of suicide, where the Tanjavur Girl’s own mother took her life ten years ago, and her troubled relationship with her stepmother which stopped her from going home for the Pongal Holidays is another fact to be considered.
5. The police with the evidence they have on record does not record a conversion case because there were no leading facts on such.
6. Presently, the court wants to determine the veracity of the video, whether the voice was really the Tanjavur Girl because none of the statements are adding up. In fact, the person who released this video did not show it to the police, rather released it on social media to set up their story of conversion. Thus, the police need the device in question and the court asked the person in question to submit the phone.
7. If they asked her to convert two years back when she was in 10th standard, it is obvious it was a one-time suggestion, and it was not mentioned again, which was why it was never an issue to be mentioned in the first FIR. Also, if it was such an issue, why didn’t they change her to another school? It is evident the parents are being pressured to press the point of conversion to suit the anti-conversion law that the BJP government is pushing for. Incidentally, in a democratic nation, it is unheard of to not allow anyone the freedom to choose their faith.
8. Students in the school claim they have never been proselytized or forced to convert, nor it this the practice in any Christian schools and this is a fake narrative set out by malicious elements.
One month back, no one ever cared for a poor girl, the Tanjavur Girl, loaded with heavy family problems intensified by a cruel warden who incidentally is arrested. Nor did anyone try to help her, and BJP woman should have been there for her when she was alive, but unfortunately after she is gone, they are trying to make political mileage out of this to push for the anti-conversion law. Of course, the Tanjavur Girl needs justice, let them do a thorough investigation.
Commenting on conversion, the ISKON, Hare Khrisna Movements, Arya Samaj are active and evangelical in approach in the West, but are pushing for suppression of minorities in the East. A sad state of situations to use the Tanjavur Girl’s very tragic suicide to twist and push the right-wing’s lopsided prejudiced unfair narrative.
Rita
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