Fear grips Hadli village, students in shock after murder of Bharat Barker

HADLI, GADAG DISTRICT : The village of Hadli, with a small population of 2,500, has gone into shock after the murder of Bharat Barker on Monday. The school has declared a holiday, and students who witnessed the attack on the boy are in trauma.

Fearing that their wards will be questioned by police, several parents have decided not to send them to school for the next few days. The area near the school wore a deserted look on Tuesday, and some villagers residing near Geeta Barker’s house went to KIMS in Hubballi, as her condition is still critical.

Those living around the school say that they rushed when they heard Bharat screaming, and saw the teacher, Muttappa Hadagali, beat up the boy and throw him from the first floor. Students who were in their classrooms also ran out and witnessed the teacher’s inhuman behaviour.

Hadagali and Geeta, who have their own families, used to chat over phone, but the details fetched by police showed that they spoke generally, and not about anything specific. A teacher, on condition of anonymity, said that Muttappa and Geeta had quarrelled recently, and stopped talking to each other.

“The school team went to Srisailam last week, and they did not interact. A villager told me that when they had quarrelled in school last week, Bharat had seen them, so Muttappa was angry with him,” the teacher said.

Bharat was our hope, says grandmother
Geeta’s mother Ratnavva said that Bharat was the only hope of their family, as he was intelligent and good at studies. The family dreamed that he would become a government officer, but fate had something different in store, she said.

“We had so many dreams for Bharat, we don’t know why that cruel teacher beat him up. My daughter did not share anything with us either. If we knew the teacher was harassing our daughter or family, we could have spoken to him. My grandson did nothing wrong, but the teacher killed him inhumanly,” Ratnavva wept.