Even as Tamil Nadu has been discussing the issue of student suicides, a 19-year-old BTech student was found hanging in her hostel room at the SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, near Chennai on Saturday. Though the exact reason for her suicide is not known, Maraimalai Nagar police have registered a case and investigation is on.
Ayushi Rana, a second year BTech student, was found dead by her hostel inmates after she did not come out of her hostel room for a long time. According to the police, while she returned to her hostel room on the eighth floor on Saturday afternoon, she did not record her biometric attendance till 9 pm, which is the cut-off time for the hostel inmates as per the rules. When her hostel inmates noticed that the room was locked from inside for a long time, they grew suspicious and alerted the authorities. The room was forced open after the police personnel arrived, and Ayushi was found hanging from the window.
The girl's body was later sent for postmortem to the Chengelpattu government hospital. While the reason for her death is being investigated, preliminary inquiries reveal that Ayushi had a spat with the hostel warden for getting back to the hostel late on Friday. Ayushi reportedly stayed outside the college hostel without informing the hostel staff. The warden had questioned her over the same. The warden then informed her parents and warned of the consequences. Her parents had spoken to her on the phone, according to police sources.
The SRM institute is already under the SBCID scanner for a series of suicides inside the hostel campus since July 2019. The CBCID probe was ordered by Chennai city police commissioner in July 2019. On July 15, Sree Raghav, a student from Kanyakumari, committed suicide by jumping off from the seventh floor of the college building. Two months before that, on May 27, a final year bio-medical student, Anu Priya, killed herself by jumping off from the eighth floor of the SRM college hostel room, and on May 27, Anith Chaudary, a first year ECE student hailing from Jharkhand, had committed suicide. Chaudary was found dead at the backyard of the boys' hostel in the SRM campus. The CBCID, which is probing the case, had already conducted several searches and inquiries in the campus. It had questioned around 25 witnesses and seized several documents in connection with the suicides in 2019.
While the CBCID probe is on, the death of Ayushi is yet another blow for the SRM institute which is one of the leading education institutions in Tamil Nadu.