Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on March 8 ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) enquiry into the suspected death by suicide of J.S. Sidharthan, a second-year student of the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University at Pookode in Wayanad in mid-February.
The student’s death had rocked State politics with Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, the Congress and also the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging that the Student Federation of India (SFI) activists in the college had tortured, shamed and put Sidharthan on public trial for some perceived campus demeanor, and left him to starve in his room for days before fellow hostelers found the student dead in a shared shower room in the college’s boarding house.
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