Teachers, staff, and a section of parents and students of private medical and engineering colleges in Puducherry took out a procession and submitted a memorandum to the Lt Governor Virendra Kataria at the Raj Nivas seeking the immediate release of four teachers arrested on charges of abetting the suicide of a girl student, here on Friday.
Following the death of Vinodini, a first-year student of Manakulavinayagar Institute of Technology at Kalitheerthankuppam, on the college premises last week, police registered a case and arrested four teachers of the college - Earnest Paul, Bhavani, Geetha and Priyadarshnini - who are now in judicial custody.
While some students and activists had maintained that harassment by the college authorities had led to the suicide, the staff had denied the allegation.
Five representatives of the Puducherry Staff Association of the College led by president V S K Venkatachalapathy met the Lt Governor seeking release of arrested teachers claiming that they had no role in the death.
“The teachers have nothing to do with the incident. The student was irregular in her assignments and was asked to bring her parents on February 22,” an association member said. On February 24, Vinodini jumped off the fourth floor building in the college. She was rushed to a medical college hospital where she succumbed to injuries after an hour.
The representatives said that the teachers were wrongly arrested to pacify some vested interests. They should be released and the cases dropped, they said and named two activists who, according to them, had instigated the students unrest, and sought their arrest. The members also sought an inquiry committee to look into the matter. The association members also met Chief Minister N Rangasamy and the Collector in this regard.