Shimla: A 12-year-old Dalit boy from the Rohru subdivision of Shimla district has died by suicide after allegedly being humiliated and locked inside a cowshed by an upper-caste neighbour. The incident has triggered outrage in the local community, with the police initiating an investigation under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

According to the boy’s uncle, Suresh Banta, the child had gone to a neighbour's house, where a woman accused him of defiling her home. She reportedly locked him inside a cowshed and later told the boy that his parents would need to give her a goat to "purify" the house.

The boy managed to escape and return home, where he consumed poison. He was admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in Shimla, but succumbed

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