The suicide case of P Raju, a student of the University of Hyderabad, seems to be snowballing into a controversy with students and his parents holding the administration responsible and the police giving it a clean chit. In fact, the police confirmed that Raju had hanged himself in his hostel room on Tuesday due to “love failure.”
The tension which gripped the campus till the wee hours of Wednesday subsided during the day after the body was taken to the Gandhi Hospital for post-mortem and the administration agreed in writing to constitute a fact-finding committee. The students had gheraoed Vice-Chancellor Ramakrishna Ramaswamy and other officials outside the H-hostel from Tuesday night till early Wednesday morning and did not let them go until the written assurance was given.
Raju’s father P Sambaiah arrived along with his eldest son P Ravi on Tuesday night and was visibly distressed and angry. He and a group of students had a heated argument with the university officials and demanded suspension of professors in the Department of Linguistics for their negligent and callous attitude towards Raju.
“If my son was failing repeatedly, why did not anyone in the administration inform the family?,” asked P Sambaiah and demanded to know, “why was he not allowed to complete his semester registration even when examinations were just a couple of weeks away?” Raju had two backlogs from previous semesters and could not get his semester registration done for the current semester.
According to students, Raju was seen at the administration building on Tuesday trying to get the semester registration done. A student, Prashanth, said, “there are many applications for semester registration lying with the administration. They are just not bothered.”
But the police had a different take on the case. N Venkateshwarlu, Inspector of Police, Chandanagar, said, “one-side love” was the reason for Raju’s suicide and denied any negligence from the UoH administration’s side. “A case under Section CrPC 174 for unnatural death has been registered and the investigation is on,” he added.
Vice-Chancellor Ramakrishna Ramaswamy could not be reached for his comment.