Protests erupt in Chennai after Anitha's suicide over NEET implementation in State

A day after the 17-year-old Dalit girl Anitha from the Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu committed suicide at her residence, students from Chennai took to the roads to protest against NEET implementation in the state.

Members  of Revolutionary Students and Youth Front (RSYF) were detained by police while protesting in Chennai.

S Anitha was a petitioner in the Supreme Court against the implementation of NEET for admissions to medical courses in Tamil Nadu.

After she had failed to score well in the NEET examination, she could not take the shock when Supreme court had asked the state to abide by NEET scores for selection process of admission to medical colleges and finish off the counselling and allocation by September 3.

Just few days earlier, in one of the videos that surfaced, she has expressed her desire to study medicine and  mentioned that she had scored exceptionally well in her class XII board exam with 200/200 in Maths and Physics.

Further in the video, she had also put up the fact that her father was the only one supporting the family with low income and she wanted to do well to share the burden.

After her death, her father was heard lamenting to the media stating that if only he had the capacity to send his daughter to coaching classes this dire situation could have been avoided.

Anitha had scored 1176/1200 and had a cut off of 199.75 for Engineering and 196.75 for Medicine which could have easily gotten her a seat in medical college if NEET was not the selection criteria.

However, she scored only 86 per cent in NEET exams as she could not understand the procedure and methods of that entrance test.

Anitha had rejected the offer from Madras Institute of Technology for aeronautical engireering  with the sole purpose of getting into medicine.

NEET was made mandatory last year for admission in medical and dental colleges across India. But Tamil Nadu has been against its implementation, arguing that it favours' CBSE students over those under state boards.