A lawyer representing the mother of a 12-year-old boy who police say died by suicide near his North Toronto home earlier this year says Premier Doug Ford should call a “full-blown public inquiry” into the child’s life and death.

An inquiry should have broad powers to revisit both how Arka Chakraborty’s school handled bullying allegations and a police investigation that was “woefully inadequate,” lawyer Barry Swadron wrote in a letter to Ford.

The province should also look into a school investigation into a missing video game console in the days before June 21, when Arka was found at the base of a highrise apartment next to his own apartment building.

Police told Arka’s mother, Durba Mukherjee, that they believe the boy jumped to his death and have concluded there was no foul play.

Mukherjee is “haunted by a number of factors related to Arka’s passing,” Swadron wrote. Police seized a note that was left in the apartment suggesting he killed himself because he had been a “disappointment” and “no one will miss me.”

Mukherjee was never interviewed by police, Swadron said, asking how the investigation can be considered meaningful “in the absence of extensive input from his only parent who lived and breathed her boy’s most intimate thoughts, desires and fears?”

Toronto police spokesperson Allison Sparkes said police have concluded the investigation, finding no criminality.

Police have been in contact with Mukherjee and have provided as much information they can, Sparkes said. “Should new information come to be about this matter, the Toronto Police Service would review it immediately.”

Mukherjee paid a visit to Queen’s Park last week, several days after her lawyer sent the letter to the premier. Inside, the NDP’s Jill Andrew, who is Mukherjee’s MPP for Toronto—St. Paul’s, introduced her to the legislature and gave a statement saying Arka “will never be forgotten.”

Swadron’s letter described Arka as an “ideal student” who was “loved by his friends and was always eager to help them.”

Mukherjee, a computer engineer, brought her only child to Canada in 2018 from India and settled into a new job and a new beginning.

Arka’s second last week of Grade 6 at a North Toronto middle school had been rough, as detailed in a recent Star story.

He’d had a run-in at school that resulted in a trip to the hospital. And, the hunt was on at school for a missing Nintendo Switch console that belonged to another schoolmate.

In the letter to the premier — which was copied to ministers for education and children, community and social services and both the attorney general and solicitor general — Swadron alleges Arka was harshly questioned at school “in an effort to coerce him to admit that he stole the console” and that Arka was refused a request to speak to his mother.

Earlier this year, a Toronto District School Board spokesperson said Arka had not been asked to confess and said the school was not aware of any pattern of bullying.

Mukherjee told the Star her son had been bullied both physically and verbally starting in October 2018. She told the Star the school knew of two physical incidents but said she did not share the alleged verbal bullying, because her son asked her not to.

The school board spokesperson said details of the school investigation into the circumstances leading up to Arka’s death “must remain private.”

“We continue to mourn the loss of Arka and his mother, family, and friends have remained in our thoughts since his passing,” school board spokesperson Ryan Bird said in response to the call for an inquiry.

The premier’s office did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.

The handwritten note police say was retrieved from Mukherjee’s apartment is signed “Arka. C,” and says, “I hereby confess to stealing” the console.

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“I am not very popular at school, so no one will miss me,” it says.

An adult might have been able to weather the situation, Swadron wrote in his letter to the premier, “but I believe a child of 12 would not have had sufficient living experience to cope with such an overwhelming challenge.”

If you or someone you know is in distress, there is help. Resources are available through the government of Canada. You can also call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868.