PUDUCHERRY: Colleges in Puducherry, where alleged suicide of students have been reported, have been directed to present reports of the deaths by September 11.
This directive came from Secretary (Education) G Ragesh Chandra at a meeting at the Bharathidasan Government College for Women on Tuesday.
Representatives of more than 50 colleges of Medical, engineering , paramedical, arts and science, agriculture, polytechnic and law, where there were reports of suicidal deaths (irrespective of the reason for suicide and premises of occurrence), voiced their opinion on the reasons for suicides and the corrective measures.
The Education secretary’s directive has come after the First Bench of the Madras High Court admitted a public interest litigation from students and parents in Puducherry on the basis of communication from the former Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
The Education Secretary said the High Court would hear the PIL soon and asked the representatives of the college managements to accord top priority to submitting the information sought.There have been around 19 cases of suicide in the past five years, both on the college campus as well as outside, according to V Balasubramanian, the petitioner.
At the meeting some college representatives expressed that in the institutions which maintained strict discipline, the suicidal deaths were higher as the strict rules would have not gone well with some students leading to suicides. Some representatives said there should be a scientific analysis of reasons for suspicious death (suicidal death) as there exited a lot of gaps between the actual cause and that cited by the police.
Citing some examples, he said that falling from top of a building is an accident, jumping is suicide. Similarly accidental drowning is an unfortunate death and voluntary drowning is suicide, he added.
The management representatives were directed to provide details, including the names of the students who allegedly committed suicide, his or her age, course and year of study, family details, cause of suicide, copy of intimation given to police and copies of all correspondences in the issue with police, public and parents and copies of first information report (FIR) and inquest report and other relevant particulars.