BENGALURU: The mother of Aditya Prabhu, the 19-year-old student who took his own life following allegations of cheating in an exam, has supposedly taken to social media, demanding that her son’s name be cleared.
In a series of posts on social media, she alleged that the university had tried to cover up Aditya’s death, and also harassed her son, leading him to take the extreme step. On July 17, following an examination, Aditya jumped off the eighth floor of a building. The university stated that Aditya had allegedly been caught cheating using a mobile phone during an examination, and had died by suicide while waiting for his parents to reach the university.
However, an account on the social media site Instagram, claiming to be Aditya’s mother, stated that Aditya had called her following the examination and said he had unintentionally taken a mobile phone into the hall, removed it and kept it to one side on discovering it. “I am Aditya Prabhu’s mother. He was a student at PES University. The college announced to the media that Aditya was caught cheating and copying during the examination. I want to tell our side of the story here,” she said.
She also alleged that proper procedure wasn’t followed and he had been mentally harassed upon being caught with the phone. “They told him it’s better to die than do such things and he asked me to come to college. I got to know that they told the police that the boy who jumped isn’t their college student and is some random person who walked in. They pressurised the police to move the body away,” she said.
She also said that following the incident, several students had come forward to talk about harassment by the university, where they were told their lives would be destroyed. “My poor boy just panicked that his reputation is destroyed and took this extreme step. I agree to carry the mobile inside the examination hall, even when done unintentionally, was wrong. But he didn’t deserve the harassment that pushed him to take this extreme step,” she said.
Speaking to TNIE, PES University officials refused to comment on the allegations. “We cannot comment on the issue as investigations are ongoing and an FIR has already been filed against the university,” said Ajoy Kumar, COO, of PES University.