BHUBANESWAR: A third-year medical student of a City-based medical college under Mancheswar police limits has allegedly committed suicide in his hostel room. Police recovered his body on Sunday.
The deceased identified as Nihar Ranjan Rout (21) is a native of Soro area in Balasore district and he was pursuing MBBS at Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital here.
Police sources said Rout locked his hostel room before hanging himself on Saturday evening. His friends knocked the door and when he did not respond for about 20 minutes they went to one of the skylights of the room and found him hanging from the ceiling fan.
Informed family members of Rout rushed to the college hostel only to find him dead. They alleged the medical college authorities had been harassing him to pay the pending fee, following which he took the unprecedented step.
“Last week the college had sent a letter with a demand to pay Rs 8 lakh towards the course fee. Since then he was under tremendous stress. They had threatened not to allow him to appear the next examination if the fee is not deposited. We suspect this could have led him to commit the suicide,” said a family member demanding stringent action against the college authorities.
Meanwhile, Mancheswar police has registered a case in this connection and initiated a probe. The body has been sent for postmortem and further investigation is on, said a police official.
The college authorities, however, refuted the allegations levelled by the family members of the deceased. Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital CEO Bhisma Rath said Rout’s academic performance was not at par and he was not attending the class regularly.
"He has not paid the fee for the last more than one and a half years. We never pressurize any student to pay the pending fee. He might have taken the extreme step as his academic performance was good," Rath told The New Indian Express.
On April 9, a plus-three third-year nursing student of the Medical College attempted to commit suicide by jumping from the third floor of the educational institution's building after she was allegedly harassment by a staff.
The girl alleged that a canteen staff of the college molested her on March 31 evening. Even as the police arrested the accused for allegedly molesting the student, college authorities had claimed that the girl was not mentally stable.