IIIT-Basara student found dead in hostel room, OUJAC calls for statewide bandh against Govt apathy

The student governing council (SGC) of RGUKT said the campus, about 210 km away from the state capital, will observe a shutdown following OUJAC’s call and hold a candlelight rally to offer condolences to the deceased student.

“This incident is purely due to the negligence of Administration, says students, after an unresponsive action from the concerned regarding the same…We request smooth cooperation of all the universities of Telangana, in a non-violent form, to declare Bandh tomorrow i.e 24th August 2022,” the SGC tweeted.

As per the call made by OUJAC, all the students of @RGUKT_Basara will be observing Bandh tomorrow i.e 24th August 2022.

Later, we shall go for a candle rally representing condolences to Late Suresh Rathod at 6pm.

— SGC RGUKT BASAR (@sgc_rguktb) August 23, 2022

First-year civil engineering student Suresh Rathod, 20, a native of Dichpalli in Nizamabad, was found dead in his room. The reasons for his extreme step are unknown.

The Basara police registered a case of unnatural death under Section 174 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and started an investigation.

According to the police, Rathod stayed back in the hostel when students went to college on Tuesday morning. When his roommates returned at noon, they found the door locked. As they got no response from inside, they broke the door open to find Rathod’s body.

The Superintendent of Police of Nirmal district, Challa Praveen Kumar, told indianexpress.com prima facie they suspected personal reasons behind the student’s death. “We have taken his mobile phone for analysis, verifying his call data records and WhatsApp chats. It appears he had no external pressures in terms of education or finance,” said the SP.

Parents of Rathod as well as the university administration have sought a thorough investigation to get the details that led to their son’s suicide, the SP added.

When contacted, Vice-Chancellor V Venkata Ramana, who took charge on July 16, said, “It is an unfortunate incident and the police are investigating. The campus has several problems and a highly charged atmosphere. We are trying to rebuild the institution and doing our best to resolve the issues in a transparent manner.”

Students took to protests and tension gripped the campus as they blamed the varsity administration for the death of Rathod. They said there was no ambulance on campus and they had to wait for about 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive after the body was found.

“There are two ambulances on campus. One took an employee to a hospital in Nirmal. The second one, a smaller ambulance, was available and sent to get a girl who fell inside a bathroom. There was a lag. The deceased student was brought to the campus hospital by the students and was rushed to Nirmal district hospital,” said a varsity official.

The state varsity campus of nearly 9,000 students had witnessed widespread protests in the recent past over several issues ranging from lack of basic infrastructure facilities in hostels to lack of sufficient staff and issues pertaining to safety and security of students, a complete breakdown of administration. They boycotted classes for days alleging government apathy until receiving assurance from the government on their 12 demands.

In July, there were protests again over the substandard quality of food served at the mess after dozens of students took ill. A couple of days ago, two second-year students were arrested by the police and remanded to judicial custody on charges of possession and consumption of marijuana.