An ‘argument over notebooks’ led to murder at an Indian school – and set a city ablaze
The killing of a 15-year-old boy by a classmate last month has intensified religious tensions in an Indian city, leaving one family in mourning and the other devastated by the crime.
On August 16, Heena* learned that her teenage son Zakir*, 15, had been accused of stabbing a classmate at their school in Udaipur, Rajasthan.
Zakir reportedly used a knife from his backpack to attack Devraj, a Hindu student, who succumbed to his injuries three days later in the hospital.
The incident has triggered a wave of grief and outrage, sparking discussions on how to address violence in schools.
State police have dismissed any religious motive behind the attack. “The students had an argument over notebooks that escalated,” investigating officer Chhagan Purohit told the BBC.
Nevertheless, the incident ignited a surge of religious violence.
False rumors that Zakir, a Muslim, had premeditated the attack spread widely on WhatsApp, leading to protests in Udaipur. Right-wing Hindu groups set vehicles on fire and chanted anti-Muslim slogans, prompting a curfew and internet shutdown.
Zakir has been detained and sent to a juvenile home, while his father has been arrested for abetment to murder, according to Mr. Purohit.
The following day, in a familiar response seen in BJP-ruled states, bulldozers demolished Heena’s rented home, leaving her and her four daughters without shelter.
“My son deserves punishment and I hope he learns to be a better human being,” Heena said. “But why did they have to punish his entire family?”
Though the violence has subsided, Udaipur residents are shaken by how a simple fight escalated. Many now fear their once-integrated Hindu-Muslim neighborhoods are being torn apart along religious lines.
“Things are getting worse and we can feel it,” one of Heena’s neighbors said on condition of anonymity.
For Devraj’s family, everything else pales in comparison to the pain of losing their son.
“This is the news every parent dreads,” his father Pappu Lal told the BBC.
A cobbler in Kuwait, he found out about the incident while he was thousands of miles away from home. By the time he got home, his son was unconscious. He died without getting a chance to see or speak to his father.
The trauma, Mr Lal said, catapulted his wife and him into debilitating sadness and sparked fury inside him.
“Their house was demolished but we lost our son,” Mr Lal said. “The house can be built again but our child? He will never come back.”
The incident has become a political sore point for the BJP, which governs India and Rajasthan after some opposition leaders accused the party of fuelling religious tensions for political gains.
Authorities claim that the house where Heena lived was demolished because it was illegally built on forest land. A notice was sent to Heena a day before the action.
But her brother Mukhtar Alam*, who owns the house, questioned how the demolition could take place when only the tenants were alerted. “It was my house and I built it with a lot of hard work. How can they just come and raze it without even telling me?”
He also asked why the other houses in the area were still standing if they were all built on forest land.
Mukesh Saini, an official in Udaipur’s forest department, told the BBC that action would be taken against those structures “at an appropriate time”.
“Right now the atmosphere is not right for that,” he said.
Critics have questioned the timing of the act and say that punishing someone for an alleged crime using laws meant for another makes no sense.
In BJP-governed states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam, bulldozers often swiftly demolish the homes of crime suspects, with officials touting this as evidence of their tough stance on law and order. While victims include Hindu families, opposition leaders and activists argue that these demolitions disproportionately target Muslims, especially following religious violence or protests.
“There is no logic to it except the communal logic of collective punishment and the authority acting as the populist dispenser of tough vigilante justice,” said Asim Ali, a political scientist.
