A 19-year-old Dalit student of physiotherapy in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district killed herself at her home on Wednesday morning allegedly after being depressed due to harassment over non-payment of college fees, the police said. Following her death, students staged a protest in front of the college on Thursday.
The girl’s relatives and friends also blockaded the road outside the Nagapattinam government hospital, where her body was kept, and said they won’t receive the body unless the correspondent, principal and a physiotherapy lecturer are arrested.
According to the Nagore police, the parents of the deceased student Subashini have registered a complaint alleging that the college management had abused their daughter using casteist slurs and made her stand outside the class as she had not paid the term fees. The police said Subashini was a first-year student and her parents are daily wage labourers.
Senior police officers in Nagapattinam pacified the protesters and sent the body for autopsy. The police have registered a case under section 174 of the CrPC as well as under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The officers said no arrests have been made in the case yet. The student’s relatives are yet to receive her body.
This article first appeared on indianexpress.com