Tragic Delhi events haunt students from Tamil Nadu

Scores of students from across Tamil Nadu shift to Delhi every year, as the national capital is considered a hub for quality education. But their aspirations are forcibly kept in check following the death of at least four students in the last two years, some of them under mysterious circumstances.

All the deceased students are from the western regions of the state. In the latest incident, Srimathi, a 20-year-old civil aspirant from Erode district allegedly committed suicide at her rented accommodation in Delhi on October 27.

This follows the controversial death of Sharath Prabhu and Saravanan, two medical students from Tirupur, triggering complaints of foul play from the victims’ family. They both share a similar tale of mystery with ‘lethal injections’ being recovered from the scene of the crime.

“The probe into Saravanan’s death is heading nowhere as investigations by the special wing of police continue to be sloppy. It’s even worse in the case of Sharath Prabhu. We haven’t received any documents related to his death so far. Even the FIR copy and a re-postmortem report haven’t been provided,” said advocate KKS Krishnaraj, the legal counsel in both the cases, adding that there has been no concrete developments despite writing several letters to the Delhi Chief Minister and other officials.

According to him, the families of the deceased medicos are waiting desperately for justice. “Both were in fact first-generation medical aspirants. Saravanan, who hails from a poor family and is the son of a mill worker, managed to grab a seat in AIIMS purely by merit,” he said.

Doctors Association for Social Equality (DASE) general secretary G R Ravindranath believes that there is a bigger mafia working against students pursuing education in north India.

“Their mysterious deaths have given room to suspicion that their vacant seats were sold off for a bigger amount,” he said.

DASE has suggested that the Tamil Nadu government form a special cell making it mandatory for students studying in other states to register their details. The problems faced by TN students should be addressed immediately to avoid continuing deaths, Ravindranath said.

Dr Maniraj, a Dalit doctor from a remote village in Tirunelveli district who survived a suicide attempt at the BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad, terms his experience at the institution as ‘hell’ due to the caste-based discrimination that he faced.

Maniraj, who has completed his MS, claims that he is still fighting against discrimination as the college has been refusing to issue the ‘no dues certificate’. “The certificate was issued to all other students, while I was denied it for no reason. Depressingly, I faced the harassment all alone as there was no support from Tamil Nadu government,” he added.