Yet another student ends life over NEET

Yet another student ends life over NEET

Bosco.Dominique@timesgroup.com

Vellore:16.09.2021

Yet another MBBS aspirant in Tamil Nadu committed suicide fearing failure in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet). The student, identified as T Soundharya, 17, from a village near Katpadi in Vellore district, hanged herself from a ceiling fan hook using her mother’s sari.

She is the third student in the state to take the extreme step fearing failure in Neet, held across the country on Saturday, after Dhanush, 19, of Salem district and K Kanimozhi, 17, of Ariyalur district.

"The girl might have committed suicide between 9.30am and 9.45am today (Wednesday). Her parents were working in a nearby farm. Her mother came home in the afternoon. She found the door locked and peeped through the window to find her daughter hanging from the ceiling. She raised the alarm and sought help," said DSP (Katpadi) P Palani.

The DSP added that preliminary inquiries could not attribute any other reason for the girl ending her life than her poor performance in the test. "Based on preliminary investigation, we suspect that her fear over failure in Neet might have driven her to take the extreme step," Palani said.

Soundharya, who completed Class XII in Vellore Thottapalayam Government Girls' Higher Secondary School, scored 510 out of maximum 600 marks in the board examination. She scored 381 out of 600 marks in plus one and 413 out of 500 marks in SSLC examinations. She appeared for Neet at a centre in a private engineering college in Katpadi on September 12.

Her mother, T Rukmini, said she had been upset and sad for performing poorly in the test and had been depressed for the past two days. Rukmini and her husband, Thirunavukkarasu, are coolies working in agriculture fields. They left home for work on Wednesday morning. Soundharya's three elder sisters had gone out too. She was alone at home.

When her parents returned home, they found her hanging from the ceiling. The Latheri police registered a case. The body was sent for post-mortem examination and police began an investigation.