3 min readRanchiUpdated: May 1, 2026 06:06 AM IST
A video that purported to show a Dalit student being forced to clean a toilet at a government primary school has prompted a probe, with officials now claiming it was orchestrated to “settle a personal score”.
The video from Jharkhand’s Lavachampa village earlier this week had triggered calls for a probe into caste-based discrimination, following which an inquiry began. District Superintendent of Education (DSE) Anurag Minj, citing the probe, said the allegations were false and that the child is not Dalit.
“The video was made with a motive to defame the headmaster, an Adivasi man. We are in the process of filing a complaint against the individual who shot and circulated it,” Minj told The Indian Express.
The child’s parents are also reported to have submitted a written statement to the education department saying their son was not forced to clean the toilet and was “misled”.
The child’s father said, “No one in the school asked our child to clean the toilet. The person who recorded the video gave him the brush and asked him to do it. That day, my son came home distressed. We had also seen the video on WhatsApp. We asked him why he was crying, and he told us that the man who filmed it asked him to clean the toilet.”
The Vidyalaya Prabandhan Samiti (VPS), which conducted a parallel inquiry, has submitted its findings to the DSE. Its president, Ayodhya Ramji, said the committee found no evidence of wrongdoing by the school staff. “The parents themselves approached us and clarified the situation. During our inspection, it emerged that the video was created deliberately,” he said, adding that the person who recorded it allegedly had a prior dispute with the headmaster.
The headmaster said he was not present on campus when the video was recorded and alleged that the person behind it held a grudge after his child was denied admission due to missing documents.
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“He is an influential person in the village and deliberately made and circulated the video,” the headmaster told The Indian Express, adding he learned of it after the child’s parents approached him.
No FIR has been registered so far, though officials said legal action against the accused is being initiated.
