By Deepak Tijori Tamilnadu: A 19-year-old boy committed suicide by hanging in Paavai engineering college in Namakkal district during the late hours of Tuesday. According to Puduchatram police, he took the extreme step after he failed to score good marks in the class tests that were conducted on the same day.
Pasumpon Karthikeyan was the son of A Elango, 48, a second-hand car dealer in Theni district. He was studying second year Computer Science Engineering in Paavai College of Engineering in Pachal near Puduchatram in Namakkal district. He returned to college after puja holidays and attended classes from Tuesday. It is learnt that he had four arrears in the last semester. On Tuesday morning, Karthikeyan attended his classes. During the day class tests were held. I was informed by college authorities that my son had scored very low marks, Elango told .
After evaluating the papers the teacher tore up his answer script and threw it on his face in front of the entire class. This hurt his feelings and he was upset the entire day, he said. After his class hours, Karthikeyan went to his hostel room. Around 7pm, when all the hostel boys went to have their dinner, he stayed back. On returning the boys found his door locked from inside. On getting no answer, they peeped through a gap in the door and found him hanging from a fan hook. They immediately alerted hostel authorities who informed Puduchatram police. Police sent the body to Rasipuram government hospital for postmortem.
Later it was shifted to Salem government hospital after kin of the deceased raised allegations. We did not find any suicide note from the boy’s room. So we have registered the case under section 174 (suspicious death) of Indian Penal Code. We will initiate investigations based on the victim’s family’s complaint, said S Eswaramurthy, inspector, Puduchatram police station.
Meanwhile, more than 300 students blocked traffic at Andagalur gate on Salem-Namakkal national highways near Rasipuram. They demanded stern action against college authorities. The boy was humiliated by lecturers in front of his classmates especially girl students. The lecturers abated him to commit suicide. So we have asked the police to arrest the college authorities including chairman CA N V Natarajan and lecturers, the protesters said.
They said they would intensify their protest if the police failed to take action. Namakkal district Superintendent of Police S R Senthil Kumar and other police officials rushed to the spot and held talks with students. The SP assured that he would conduct the investigation in a fair manner. Convinced, the students withdrew their protest. After two hours traffic returned to normal on Salem-Madurai national highways.
When contacted, a senior professor from Paavai educational institutions said on condition of anonymity that the boy was not a bright student. We did not humiliate the boy at any stage. His parents are making false allegations against the teachers, he said. Meanwhile, the college authorities declared two-day holiday from Wednesday. A case had been registered by Puduchatram police and further investigations are underway.