With his hands folded and eyes partly closed, Mohammed Iqbal, 47, is immersed in prayer. Clad in a white shirt and dhoti at his ancestral home in Thamarassery, a village in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, Iqbal is at a religious ritual for the third day. He is mourning the death of his eldest son, Mohammed Shahabaz, 15. When he starts chanting prayers, tears roll down his cheeks. His relatives stand around him. “His wife and three children have not accepted the fact that Shahabaz is no more,” one of them says.
Iqbal, who had toiled for years as a daily wage labourer abroad, says his eldest son was really smart. “He performed well in school. He would make electronic toys. He loved playing sports. He always took care of his younger siblings. I couldn’t even buy him a mobile phone, as I was short of money,” he says. Iqbal vows to fight until death to secure justice for his son.
Shahabaz, a Class 10 student at a government-aided school at Elettil village, died on March 1 after he was brutally assaulted during a clash between two groups of teenagers at Thamarassery in Kozhikode on February 27. His death led to widespread protests by the Youth Congress, the Kerala Students’ Union, and the Muslim Students Federation, among others. These organisations allege that Shahabaz was murdered and that there was a conspiracy behind his death. The Kerala government described the incident as “unfortunate” and said a comprehensive investigation would be conducted. The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights also registered a suo motu case on the incident.
Also Read | Class 10 student from Kerala’s Kozhikode dies after group clash, Minister orders inquiry
A deathly brawl
The problem began on February 23, when there was an argument between the students of two schools — Muhammedali Jauhar Higher Secondary School, Elettil; and Government Vocational Higher Secondary School, Thamarassery — at Trizz, a local training centre in Thamarassery, according to trainers at the centre. There was a farewell party for Class 10 students from the two schools that day at the centre. When the music that was being played for a dance performance at the party stopped due to technical glitches, students from the Thamarassery school laughed, and this led to a heated argument between the students of the two schools, say trainers.
The students met again on February 27 at the centre. “Shahabaz was not a student at Trizz, but he came to the spot along with his friends from the Muhammedali School to settle scores with the students from Thamarassery,” says a trainer. Witnesses say the first clash between the two groups took place along a dingy corridor of a building complex near the tuition centre. When the locals intervened, the students moved to other spots. They clashed four times in front of about 50 students at the centre, say locals.
“The students from both the schools began assembling near the tuition centre at around 4.30 in the evening. The clash broke out around 5.30 and went on till 7,” recall Siddique and Shukkur, two tea shop owners who saw the brawl. According to them, after the students fought the first time, teachers from the tuition centre intervened and forced the students to disperse.
Hajira and Jaseera, who run a stitching unit near the incident spot, say they heard loud noises around the building but they were too scared to intervene. “We thought that this was a minor quarrel between the students as such incidents happen sometimes. We never thought that it would lead to this,” Hajira says.
K.K. Akhilesh, the head of the tuition centre, says the five students who were nabbed the next day by the police in connection with the incident, based on a complaint by Shahabaz’s parents, had not turned up for classes that day and were waiting outside the centre. “They did not have any criminal background, nor were they aggressive. They were good students who studied hard,” Akhilesh says. A sixth student was nabbed in connection with the incident on March 4.
When Shahabaz sustained a head injury and collapsed, the tuition centre trainers and locals called his family, who rushed him to the Thamarassery taluk hospital. There, he was referred to the Kozhikode Medical College, according to the police. Shahabaz had become unconscious after several episodes of vomiting and also had severe wounds in his eyes. He succumbed to injuries on March 1. That evening, he was laid to rest at the Kedavoor Juma Masjid Khabar Sthan.
Also Read | Five Class X students in Kozhikode booked for murder after student injured in clash dies
Murmurs of a conspiracy
According to the postmortem report, Shahabaz had suffered a deep head injury and a fractured skull. The police later found that he had been attacked with a nunchaku, a martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks. The police say one of the six students involved in the incident had brought the weapon, which had been in the possession of his older brother, with him.
Anger built up when a photo emerged showing the father of one of the accused alongside a convict in the 2012 murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader, T.P. Chandrasekharan. Further, the police say they found a WhatsApp group that was created by the six accused. They say the messages on the group of 60 people and another Instagram group showed that the six boys had been planning the clash for more than four days. The police recovered a laptop, four phones, and the weapon from the houses of the accused.
A senior police officer says the accused show no repentance. “They had discussed everything on a social media group and even posted details of the nunchaku that was brought to the spot. The voice messages sent by some of the students in the group clearly explained the plan. The messages indicate a dangerous criminal trend among adolescents,” he says.
P. Jayesh, a professional karate trainer, says the nunchaku is banned in several countries, but not in India. “If people simply watch some demonstration videos and use it, they may use it crudely. This can lead to an unpredictable outcome. There should be a proper vigil against the misuse of such weapons,” he says.
Iqbal worries about the probe. “One of the key accused is the son of a policeman, while a few others are the children of politically influential people,” he says.
The police have charged the teenagers under Sections 103(1) (murder), 118(2) (causing grievous hurt using dangerous weapons), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 189(2) (unlawful assembly), 191(2) (rioting), and 190 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023. They say more sections of the BNS are likely to be invoked once the probe is completed and the final report submitted. The police have also reached out to Meta and other social media platforms to collect evidence.
A recurring phenomenon
Some traders say that students from the two schools, located nearly 7 kilometers apart, have been fighting for years on various issues, such as sports and cultural programmes. They even have a name for it — ‘Friday Thallumala’, an act of revenge. Some local traders also sought action from the police a few months ago, to end the street scuffles that took place on Fridays.
The incident and investigation have largely affected the two schools and their students and teachers. Mohammed Basheer, headmaster of the Government Vocational Higher Secondary School, Thamarassery, is in tears. All the six students who have been held are from his school. “The school has been putting up a good performance. Now, everyone is shaken. This is my last year in my career as a teacher and this happens,” he says, sitting in his office room.
The situation is no different at the Muhammedali Jauhar Higher Secondary School at Elettil, where the students are mourning the death of their close friend and struggling to focus on exams. One of them says, “Shahabaz was a tech-savvy student.” Another says, “Shahabaz was athletic and was active in the school football team.” Two Class 10 students say Shahabaz was never part of any gang and never got into trouble. Teachers also echo these sentiments,.
J. Mini, the headmistress of the school, says the school authorities have arranged for counselling sessions for Shahabaz’s classmates to help them cope with the trauma. She also worries about this becoming more common: “There are many deviant characters these days, who are a big concern for teachers. We are helpless; we cannot combat the issue alone. Throughout the State, we are seeing such unhealthy developments. Incidents of substance abuse and related crimes are also increasing. It is time for stronger interventions.”
Student activists stage a protest in front of the government observation home in Kozhikode.
| Photo Credit:
K. Ragesh
The students involved in the incident were shifted to a government observation home in Kozhikode and allowed to write the SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) exam. This has led to protests by students’ organisations.
Iqbal, too, is furious with the Education Department. “A special exam centre with police protection should not have been sanctioned by the government inside the observation home. It was humiliating for us when the boys wrote their exams so comfortably when my son, who was also supposed to write the SSLC exam, was being buried,” he told politicians who visited him.
Iqbal says he received the biggest shock when he found out that one of Shahabaz’s former close friends participated in the assault. The boy had studied with Shahabaz for about seven years in another school and had even visited Shahabaz’s home and shared meals with him. The two of them had moved to different schools after Class 8. Class photos of the two students have been recovered and support the father’s claims, according to the police.
District Police Chief (Kozhikode rural) K.E. Baiju says the police have taken all possible legal action, as part of their investigation. He says they cannot endorse any stand that advocates curtailing the right of students to write exams, as this would be unconstitutional. Baiju also says the police will investigate more to track all those who were part of the “conspiracy”.
“The students involved in the incident were not found to have the thoughts of ordinary students. Our investigation indicates that this was a well-planned attack,” he adds.
Juvenile Justice Board member Mohan Kumar says the trial will be conducted immediately after the police submit the final investigation report. “All the legal procedures have been followed as the involved students are minors. They can also move for bail complying with the existing rules and regulations,” Kumar says.
Also Read | Shahabas death: protests continue, police seek details of Instagram accounts from Meta
Distressing figures
‘Kaval’ is a programme implemented by the Department of Women and Child Development with support from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. It focuses on the rehabilitation and social reintegration of children in conflict with the law through a psychosocial approach. Data with Kaval shows that 2,274 children in the 14-18 age group attended counselling sessions between April 2023 and March 2024. Of them, about 100 were involved in murder attempt cases and about 800 in various cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The majority of the children did not have any criminal background and at least 1,600 of them were from rural areas. More than 1,750 of them came from families below the poverty line. Only 296 students were found to have behavioral issues.
Dr. P.N. Suresh Kumar, a psychiatrist, points out that only a multi-dimensional approach with a focus on reducing adolescents’ exposure to violent content on social media and films will help society address the issue. “The unrestricted exposure to violence affects the frontal lobe of the brain that controls thoughts, movements, and social skills,” he says. Teachers should work with the Health Department to screen adolescents with behavioural issues, Dr. Suresh Kumar adds.
An official from the Department of Education says there are ongoing discussions on the formation of a State-level intervention module. Kerala is also trying to strengthen existing projects such as ‘Our Responsibility to Children’ and ‘Student Police Cadets’. A meeting of the heads of various schools will be convened before the next academic year to finalise the action plan, he adds.
Shahabaz’s uncle, Mujeeb Rahman, says he was close to his nephew. “He would ask me for money for his electronic experiments. He had the freedom to ask me anything. We used to travel together when he had school vacations. He was not a child with any criminal tendencies; he was a creative and imaginative boy,” he says.
Another uncle, Najeeb, says the family will meet the Chief Minister and demand that everyone responsible for the boy’s death be arrested. “No parent should have to go through the trauma of seeing their child being killed,” he says.
mithosh.a@thehindu.co.in
Published – March 08, 2025 05:36 am IST