Biswas said that after Rouvanjit was caned by Principal Sunirmal Chakravarthy on February 8, he went home as a normal child and even told his vice principal in a ‘laughing spirit’ that he could not be detained as the principal had already punished him for the offence.

Rouvanjit did not come to school for three days after the caning and arrived on the fourth day with some stink bombs, Biswas said. “If he was so much in deep anguish, pain and humiliation after his caning, do you think he would have played this kind of trick again in the class?”

He said Rouvanjit’s post-mortem report, as quoted in a section of the media, did not link the suicide with the caning. While apologising for the caning of Rouvanjit by the school principal, Biswas said it was done as a disciplinary action and not intended to hurt him physically. He said corporal punishment, however, would not be practised in any of the 32 educational institutions run by the CNI Kolkata diocese.