Aditya Yadav was a lower KG student in Bihar.
A seven-year-old student died in Bihar a day after he was allegedly beaten by his residential school's owner for failing to do his homework, his friends claimed.
Aditya Yadav was a lower KG student at a private school in Saharsa district.
The accused, Sujeet Kumar, thrashed him with a wooden stick on Wednesday for not completing his homework, said one of his friends.
Aditya's friends and seniors, who lived with him in the hostel, found him dead in his bed next morning.
When they took him to Kumar, he advised them to leave his body at the hospital, said a Class 4 student of the school.
Kumar then informed the boy's father he had fainted. But before he could reach his son's school, Aditya was declared dead at a nursing home.
Kumar, who denied the charges against him, is now missing.
The boy was already dead when he was brought to the nursing home, said Dr Dinesh Kumar. There were no injury marks on his body, he said, adding that the reason behind his death could be ascertained only after autopsy.
In a contradicting statement, another student said the boy's body was swollen due to the beating. He said Aditya was beaten two days in a row for not memorising his lessons.
The victim's father, Prakash Yadav, said Aditya had last visited home on Holi and returned to his hostel on March 14. "I was informed on Thursday that my son had fainted in the school and was being taken to hospital. But before I could reach the private clinic, Aditya had died and Sujeet Kumar gone missing," he said.
The student's father filed a complaint alleging his son died after being beaten in the school, said police. His autopsy report is awaited.
Meanwhile, Kumar told a newspaper over phone that after the boy didn't wake up in the morning, they took him to a local doctor who referred him to Saharsa. He died there during treatment, he claimed.