A day after violence broke out on the campus of Sathyabama University outside Chennai following a student's suicide, the girl’s senior spoke about how they are fed up with the university’s strict rules that is adding to their woes.
A first-year student from Andhra Pradesh had allegedly committed suicide by hanging in her hostel room inside the campus.
Elaborating on the way the events unfolded, Mahitha Sree, a senior in the Computer Science department, said, 'The girl was caught copying and the teacher told her that she will have to repeat the paper. Upset, she went to her hostel room, sent a video of herself to her twin brother saying she is going to commit suicide. '
What caused fury amongst the students was that the brother alleged that even when he went to the hostel to enquire, he was questioned by the hostel authorities instead of acting immediately.
The students want the rules to be changed since in that five minutes of arguing, a life was lost. That’s when they began burning all mattresses and damaging the college.’Mahitha Sree
The campus witnessed violence and arson on Wednesday night. Students torched the furniture, broke windows, and burnt mattresses of the university hostel, and held noisy protests outside.
The Chennai Police Commissioner spoke to The Quint and clarified that the situation is under control and police personnel are currently deployed all over the campus.
The students had dragged out mattresses and set them on fire. Contrary to many media reports, no buildings were set on fire. We are monitoring the situation closely.AK Vishwanathan, Chennai Police Commissioner
The body has been sent to Royapettah Hospital for postmortem and the report is expected shortly.
Raja Reddy, father of the girl, who is a general manager in a private company in Hyderabad, has lodged a complaint with the Semmencheri police station.
I don’t know what to say, I lost my daughter. No word from the college management till now. No word from the Dean either. I want stringent action against the college management, such incidents shouldn’t happen again.Raja Reddy
Sathyabama University has been closed until 2 January, and most of the students have been sent home. Officials have confirmed that all exams have been postponed till reopening date.
The private university has witnessed violence in the past too, over issues of restriction for students to interact with the other gender, strict dress code and curfew.
The Quint has reached out to the college authorities for a statement and is awaiting their response.
Video Editor: Mohd Ibrahim
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