Thanjavur student suicide case: Will TN BJP President Annamalai apologise?

Over two years after the sucide of 17-year-old Lavanya in Thanjavur, the CBI has ruled out any religious conversion angle as alleged by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the BJP. The CBI informed the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court of its findings on September 18 and added that the child had taken her own life because she had been forced to do administrative work at the Christian missionary-run boarding school she had been studying. The court had been hearing a plea by the main accused Sister Sagaya Mary, the school’s hostel warden, to quash the CBI’s charge sheet against her. Lavanya, a student of the Sacred Hearts Higher Secondary School in Michaelpatti, died by suicide on January 19, 2022. Her death led to a political storm in the state with the BJP and VHP attempting to portray it as a case of a ‘forced-conversion’ of a Hindu to Christianity. TNM's Shabbir Ahmed brings you details of what the CBI found during its investigation.