Who Failed Numan?

A child died trying to meet his school's standards. We should be asking what kind of standards those were.

- Syed Mohammad Burhan

Numan Farooq Sofi was just 14. He lived in Srinagar, went to school, and had tattoos. Now, he's gone.

The cause of death, the officials said, was suicide. But if that's all we see, we're missing the truth.

He lived with his deaf father and older siblings. His mother was no longer around. He studied at Kashmir Harvard Educational Institute, one of the prominent private schools in the city.

From the outside, it seemed like he was making it. But inside, Numan was under fire for something most teenagers shrug off as rebellion: tattoos.

According to his sister Mehwish, Numan went through four painful sessions to get them removed. Four. The ink faded. The shame didn’t.

The school authorities, she said, wouldn’t let it go. They kept checking. They kept asking. They even opened his shirt to look. In a classroom, surrounded by peers.

What kind of message does that send to a 14-year-old trying to fit in?

What happened to Numan is not rare in emotion, only in outcome. Kids feel judged all the time. But not every child has the same reserves of strength. Not every child survives it.

And what did the watchdogs do? Mostly, they looked away. For reasons they haven’t explained. Maybe they feared backlash. Maybe they thought it wasn’t news. But when a child dies, silence should never be the answer.