COIMBATORE: After six days of protests, family members on Tuesday received the body of Akilan, who died by suicide due to alleged caste harassments at his school here. His remains were buried in a cemetery located at Cheran Ma Nagar in the city.On Monday, the case was transferred to the CB-CID, after which Akilan’s parents gave their consent for a postmortem of the body. However, they maintained that their decision on receiving the body would depend on govt action. Following this, minister for backward classes welfare V Sampath Kumar handed over Rs 6 lakh to the family as relief and a govt job appointment order to Akilan’s sister.On Tuesday morning, the family members received the body and took it to their house at in Peelamedu, from where it was taken to a cemetery. Social Justice minister Vanni Arasu visited his residence and paid floral tribute to his remains.Vanni Arasu said no one linked to the death of student Akilan would be able to evade the CB-CID investigation and announced that the govt would take steps to remove caste names from schools to curb discrimination.Addressing reporters, the minister said he visited Akilan’s home as instructed by chief minister C Joseph Vijay. He noted that the backward classes welfare minister had already met the family and that legal procedures were under way.He said caste discrimination had persisted in schools for years and should be eliminated through decisive action. “Removing caste identifiers from schools is a key step govt intends to implement,” he said. The minister added that he had raised the need to implement the Justice Chandru report in the assembly to address caste discrimination on school premises.
