The former Saraswati Vidya Niketan (SVN) teacher, whose relationship with student Alex Persaud resulted in his expulsion, says she believes the embarrassment and harassment the boy faced as a result had pushed him to take his life.
The former teacher, who spoke to Stabroek News on condition of anonymity, said their relationship was blown of proportion and it was nothing but innocent. The teacher, an 18-year-old who graduated from the school last year, said Persaud, 16, was embarrassed by the principal in front of an entire classroom about their relationship.
She also stated that on several occasions she was approached by another teacher who questioned her about whether she was involved with Persaud. “The school is very disciplined and we were scared. So I would tell her [no], because I was scared,” she said, noting that that teacher had a way of harassing other teachers and students in public.
Persaud ingested weedicide on October 6, two days after he was expelled from the school. He told his parents that the head of the school, Swami Aksharananda, had embarrassed him in front of his classroom before he expelled him. He died four days after. The principal has declined to speak to Stabroek News on this matter.
The teacher indicated that their relationship started earlier this year after much warning from another teacher. She said she warned Persaud about the trouble they could get into if anyone found out about the relationship but he was determined and so it continued.
However, she added that after a while her father started asking questions and she told him the truth. She said her father later called the principal and informed him what was going on, before forcing her to resign. She said after that she was not allowed to contact Persaud, and was shocked when he called her three days after he was expelled to tell her he drank poison.
“He call me that Monday and ask if I’m okay and why I resign and if I’m coming back…he was crying so much. I never heard him cry but then he told me he drink poison. I ask him why but he didn’t answer he keep crying and hollering,” she said.
“We never broke up. He was frightened after everything. No one told me when he died… I didn’t get to see him after either,” she added.
With tears in her eyes, she said she was not allowed to go see him in the hospital before he died. “The Friday night someone come and tell me he pass away and I felt like I didn’t have no more life in me…like everything was gone. I didn’t get to say anything to him. All I could have done was go into my bed and cry. All I keep remembering was when he asked me why I am not coming back,” she said.
Meanwhile, a friend told Stabroek News that Persaud was very popular in the school and was friendly with everyone. “He was well known for having a lot of friends. It’s a mockery to the school because they had us go to GuyExpo to take part in their suicide booth and then one of their own kill himself and they didn’t even want us to go to the funeral or hold a moment of silence,” the friend said.
Harrynarine Persaud, the boy’s father, said he was angry with the school because the administrators did not inform him that they were going to expel his son. He said the principal, Aksharananda, had agreed to meet with him and his wife to discuss Persaud’s relationship with the teacher but he never said anything about expulsion.
Persaud said the teachers took too long to act and therefore they were responsible for withholding the information from the school and himself. He questioned why the teacher waited until the woman had resigned to inform them about the relationship. “This teacher knew the woman was having a relationship with a student and did nothing about it.”
