Teacher Who Beat UP Dalit Teen To Death Arrested

Days after a 15-year-old Dalit boy was beaten to death at an Uttar Pradesh school over a spelling error, his teacher has been arrested.

The police had been looking for the teacher, Ashwini Singh, for a week.

On September 7, Nikhit Dohre, a Class 10 student, was struck with a stick and a rod and kicked until he fell unconscious. He was beaten for misspelling the word "social" in an exam, his father had said in his complaint to the police.

The teacher, belonging to an upper caste community, first gave Rs 10,000 for Nikhit's treatment and then an additional Rs 30,000, but later stopped responding to phone calls, according to the complaint. The victim's father says when he confronted the teacher, he was abused with casteist slurs.

Nikhit died of his injuries on Monday.

Senior police officer Charu Nigam said Ashwini Singh was arrested based on inputs from an informer. He had been hiding at a relative's home, the police official added.

Soon after the teen's death, protests erupted in the area. Police filed FIRs against 35 persons and around 2,500 others for their involvement in violent protests.

The protests were organised by Bhim Army but those who resorted to violence were not associated with the group, police told NDTV.