Tamils in UK & Europe are shocked, after a 15 years old ethnic Dutch Tamil boy committed suicide after being racially bullied by his friends at school. Tharukshan Selvam, , left a note saying he was being harassed by other students at Grotius College, in the city of Heerlen, and online.
Shamed Netherland police and Grotius School officials are now under pressure as call to investigate the incident, while some media in Netherland have cowardly reported the call for investigation as ‘threat to school staff’.
His family published his suicide note, in which he described how he was being bullied at school. He was also being harassed by anonymous social media accounts, believed to be the work of his class mates.
His sister Thanoshiya said on Facebook her brother had been the target of online bullying after the family stopped his allowance. He had been spending money on buying fast food meals and gifts for his classmates and they refused to pay him back.
‘They would throw food at him, insult his skin colour and appearance,’ the sister said. Messages were placed online telling him ‘you are not fit to live. We don’t want you. We’d be happy without you. Jump in front of a train. Commit suicide,’ the sister said.
The condolence register the school opened on Wednesday was flooded with responses from across the country. “You should be deeply ashamed, students and school”, “Bullies of Tharukshan: you should be deeply ashamed”, “How could this happen?” and “This could have been avoided”, were just some of the responses.
Tharukshan’s family describes him as a cheerful boy who always put on a brave face for the outside world, his brother in law Mayruam Sellathurai said to De Limburger, speaking on behalf of the family. At home Tharukshan liked to listen to music, talk with his family members and play some cards. The night of his death they also played cards before going to bed. “I noticed nothing wrong with him. In fact, he was cheerful”, Sellathurai said. A few hours later, Tharukshan’s family found him dead in his bedroom.
Full script of his sister Thanoshiya Selvam’s heart breaking ordeal published on Facebook is presented below.
“It breaks my heart to say that we lost our dear Tharukshan on 08/01/17 in Heerlen, Netherlands. He was a very happy jolly person, with great ambitions, a kind heart and a beautiful smile. His ultimate dream was to become a famous vlogger and singer one day. Tharukshan was extremely caring and loved his family very much– he would do anything to make them happy. Tharukshan had many friends in primary school and was extremely close to them. However, when he started at a new secondary school, that’s where his troubles began.
Tharukshan was the youngest member of the family and was allowed to have a part time job alongside his studies. However, his classmates were quick to take advantage of that. They made him buy them McDonalds, perfume, MAC lipstick and more with the false promise of paying him back soon after. Tharukshan was a vegetarian and so only ate ice cream whenever they went to McDonalds and yet they talked him into paying for all of their food too. This continued for a while until his family realized that his bank account was completely empty and so they took his bank card away. And that was when his classmates turned on him. They started throwing food at him, insulting his dark complexion and appearance, creating multiple Instagram accounts and posting unwanted photos of him with the purpose of hurting him. There were also many anonymous messages on social media such as, “Tharukshan die, you’re not fit to live. We don’t want you. Go jump in front of a train, commit suicide.” No 15-year-old, in fact no human deserves to hear this.
He could no longer take the racial abuse, extortion, bullying and harassment on social media accounts from his secondary school classmates. Tharukshan made his first failed suicide attempt on 5/12/16. His friend called the police, who came and talked to Tharukshan for several hours. He opened up to the police about how he was getting bullied and how he had already spoken to his teacher about this. This is when the family initially found out about the bullying that was happening at school and online.
His sister (Saranya Selvam) had started noticing before his first suicide attempt that something was wrong with him. She tried talking to him but he made no attempt to open up as he didn’t want to hurt his family. So he put on a pretense of being happy whenever he was at home. His sister was still seriously concerned and so she sent an email to the school on the December 1st saying she needed to talk to his teacher. The school replied the following day saying that the teacher was off for training purposes and would contact her about scheduling a meeting. Surprisingly, the school did not contact her thereafter until late December.
His family made great efforts to talk to him and spend time with their beloved son/brother when they found out what he was going through. They made plans to move him to another school. Tharukshan was not the first pupil to go through this at Grotius College. There were many other students who were bullied like this, yet the school made very little effort to prevent such issues. And so Tharukshan, the boy who was once very happy with his life, became so scared and miserable to the extent where he made the heart-breaking decision to end his life.
Tharukshan was very happy when the school holidays finally came. He stayed up late to watch movies and play cards with his siblings and parents. Two days before the start of the new school term, he spent a lot of time with his family. He asked his sister to buy him chips and chocolate and he also asked his mother to make salad for him. After lunch he went upstairs and listened to loud music in his room as usual. When his dad returned from work later that evening, he sat down and talked to his son and Tharukshan gave him a tight hug. He then went to his mum, wished her a goodnight and gave her a final kiss. He also told his eldest sister (Thanoshiya Selvam) how much he loved her and kissed her goodnight as she fell asleep. And that was the last time they saw their dear Tharukshan. His dad went upstairs a little later on to find his son hanging dead in the bathroom.
Tharukshan wrote many farewell letters to all his loved ones before he passed away, including his beloved parents, siblings, other family members and close friends. No one expected him to come to this decision and now we all mourn the loss of a precious angel.
The purpose of this writing is not to create hatred against those who caused the death of our Tharukshan, but to show the effect of bullying. The family don’t want to harm the people who were involved in this as what has happened cannot be reversed. Even though Tharukshan had great support from family and close friends, he simply couldn’t make it through the bullying and hurtfulness that he was experiencing. Had the school made more effort to contact his sister and prevent his school mates from bullying Tharukshan online, Tharukshan could have been alive today.
We ask that you do not create hatred against those who bullied him as they are still young and we hope this will be a lesson to them. We hope Grotius College will take appropriate action to inform the pupils and parents what has occurred. Most importantly, cyber bullying is a major issue occurring in this generation and it needs to stop – we have to give support without them having to ask for it.
Tharukshan commit suicide the day before school was going to start. That just shows how much he hated going to school and being bullied and would rather have died. According to his friend, he even told his teacher on the last day before the holidays that he would not be returning in January. The teacher made no effort to find out why he had said that. This is an extremely sensitive situation and we hope that the school will give a lot of options to the students who are affected by his death. For example, an assembly in memory of Tharukshan, group sessions, counselling etc.
Those of us who were lucky enough to cross paths with Tharukshan will cherish our sweet memories with him and hope that God takes care of him. We lost our dear Tharukshan to bullying. Our son, our child, our blood, our brother – lost forever
Tharu, we will miss you.
Tharukshan Selvam”
