Manav Singh

Manav Singh (; 27 November 2002 – 4 May 2020) was a 17-year-old boy from Gurugram, India, who died by suicide after being accused of sexual harassment by Bhavleen Kaur on her Instagram stories. The boy took his own life by jumping off the 11th floor balcony of his home on 4 May 2020. Following the allegations, he was bullied, shamed, and received threats.

The allegations and the suicide happened on same day as the Bois Locker Room incident, and surfaced to the internet on the next, leading many to assume that they were related.

Biography

Background A student of Heritage Xperiential Learning School, Gurgaon, His father worked in the private sector, while his mother was a homemaker. They were living in a rented condominium in DLF Carlton Estate, Gurugram, and had been living at home since March 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown began.

Accusation Almost an hour before his suicide, Kaur had posted an Instagram story alleging an incident which occurred when Manav was 14–15 years old, accusing him of harassing her, touching her inappropriately and demanding sexual favours. After the story went viral, Manav received threatening calls and messages and was the victim of harassment by the girl and her friends. Manav tried to defend himself and maintained that he was innocent. According to a classmate, Manav pleaded with her friends to take it down, contending that it was not true, but they were relentless. After sustained abuse, he panicked and reached out to his friends.

According to an Instagram post by his brother, he had a panic attack, and took his own life.

Suicide On 4 May 2020, at about 11:30 in the evening, Manav jumped off the 11th floor balcony of his home in DLF Carlton Estate, in Gurugram. An initial FIR was filed against 'unknown persons' for abetment of suicide. Singh alleged that the immense distress, shame, fear and unbearable anxieties caused by the "defamatory, slanderous, illegal post" had led to his son committing suicide, and he asked that a case be registered against all persons who had posted the content and against Instagram, which had allowed the public dissemination of the post. The father blamed online harassment and trolling for his son's suicide.

Faulty investigation According to Manoj, after the registration of the FIR, the police were completely passive in investigating the case for 2–3 months and didn't submit details of the probe about the involvement of others in the case. The police also did not produce Instagram, WhatsApp or Snapchat records. It was at this point that Manoj Singh's lawyer Amish Aggrawala filed a case under the Section 156 clause 3 of the Criminal Procedure Code which empowers the court to direct the police to register an FIR or even monitor the case after the registration. The case reached the Gurgaon court which expressed concern over the slow pace of investigation, noting "the investigating officers are working at a low pace in the present matter for reasons best known to them," directing the Gurugram police to submit a status report every 15 days until the filing of the final report. According to The Times of India, the father had been "running from pillar to post" to, as Singh said, "get justice for [his] son". According to Aggrawala, this chargesheet was preceded by 4 months of stretching out of the investigation by the police. Kaur and a friend are currently facing trial under Section 305 (abetment to suicide) and Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. After the chargesheet was filed, the family's legal counsel filed a protest petition, saying the investigation was faulty, because they had named several witnesses and accused, none of which were examined.

Intervention by the National Human Rights Commission In June 2021, the National Human Rights Commission of India intervened in the case after a petition by the boy's family. The Commission conducted a perusal and declared that there had not been a fair investigation in the matter, citing problems such as the silence of the enquiry report on any arrests, the mobile phones not being sent for forensics on time, and the filing of a final report without the procurement of any "mobile phone data report, snapchat, instagram from FSL, Madhuban" [sic]. The Commission termed the investigation done by the I.O. as "nothing but a vitiated investigation which cannot rise to a valid chargesheet."