Amal Jyothi Engineering College at Kanjirappally, which has been in the eye of a storm over the suicide of 20-year-old Shraddha Satheesh, witnessed a wave of protests on Tuesday, prompting an intervention by the State government.
The drama began to unfold in the morning when the police blocked the students of the institution who had converged for a protest from entering the college campus. The agitators, however, refused to back out and insisted on continuing with the protests till the college initiated action against the Head of the Food Technology department and the hostel warden who had been accused of harassing the victim.
The previous night, the college management had announced a closure of the institution in view of the protests and asked the students to vacate their hostel rooms by 9 a.m. on Tuesday. But the students refused to leave the campus.
As the stand-off intensified during the day, government Chief whip N. Jayaraj, MLA, attempted to mediate between the management and the protesters, though to no avail. The tension escalated further as the students resisted a move by the police to disperse the crowd by force and launched another round of agitation against the “unprovoked” assault on the students.
At the same time, a handful of student organisations took out marches outside the college campus throughout the day. The situation, however, eased following an intervention by Higher Education Minister R. Bindu who is now slated to hold discussions with the students and the college management on Wednesday. Cooperation Minister V.N. Vasavan will also be present.
Acting on a direction from Saji Gopinath, Vice-Chancellor, Kerala Technological University (KTU), a two-member panel from the varsity is also slated to visit the college campus on Wednesday and prepare a report on the episode.
Responding to the protests, the college management stated that it had already sent a letter to the district police chief, Kottayam, seeking an investigation into episode and bring out the factors that led to the death of the student. The mobile phone and laptop used by the victim have been handed over to the police.
Shraddha, a second-year Food Technology student, was found unresponsive in her hostel room on June 2. It is alleged that she took the extreme step after teachers seized her mobile phone which she had used in the laboratory.
The students also accuse the hostel warden of attempting to cover up the suicide attempt from the doctors who had attended her at a hospital nearby.
