Wednesday, December 4, 2019

14 suicides at IIT-M: Court reserves order on plea for CBI probe

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:4.12.2019

The Madras high court has reserved its order on a PIL seeking CBI probe into all ‘14 suicides’ reported at IIT-Madras since 2006.

When the PIL filed by Loktantrik Janata Dal’s youth wing came up for hearing on Tuesday, a division bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha adjourned the plea for passing orders.

Earlier, justifying the relief sought for, Saleem Madavoor, national president of the party’s Yuva Janata Dal, said, “So far 14 students, including five from Andhra Pradesh, three from Kerala and two each from Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Puducherry and Jharkhand have reportedly committed suicide in the institution since 2006 as they faced discrimination on the basis of religion, caste and language. But so far, the head of the institution has not taken any steps to ascertain the reason for the suicides.”

The most recent case of suicide is that of Fathima Latheef, who killed herself due to religious discrimination at the hands of some faculty members, he added.

Though such suicides were primarily due to harassment and ill-treatment, neither the Tamil Nadu government nor local police conducted any fruitful inquiry to bring out the reasons behind such deaths, Madavoor alleged.

Claiming that these cases also fall under the exceptional circumstances where probe can be transferred and entrusted with an independent agency, the petitioner wanted the court to intervene and order a CBI probe into all the 14 suicides on the basis of a representation given by him on November 23.

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