The self-financing engineering education sector in Kerala has plunged into chaos with violent protests by students’ outfits continuing for the past three days over the alleged suicide of an engineering student in a college hostel in Thrissur under mysterious circumstances and self-financing college managements deciding to keep their institutions closed for a day and threatening to turn the shutdown into an indefinite affair if situation does not improve.
The CPI(M)-led lDF Cabinet on Wednesday decided to constitute a high-level committee to closely monitor the “physical and academic” affairs at the self-financing colleges while the Technological University will appoint an ombudsman for examining students’ complaints in the context of the student’s death and a flood of complaints about the conduct of such colleges.
A meeting of the Cabinet also decided to allot financial assistance of Rs10 lakh to the family of Jishnu Pranoy (18), a first year BTech (Computer Science) student of the Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre, Pampady, Thrissur who allegedly committed suicide in a hostel bathroom of the college on January 6 following alleged torture by the college management.
Protests by students’ unions like the pro-CPI(M) SFI and pro-Congress KSU on Monday at the Nehru College had turned violent and activists had vandalized the campus. On Wednesday, KSU activists vandalized the office of the Self-Financing Engineering College Managements Association in Kochi just before an urgent meeting of its office-bearers inside.
“An atmosphere of terror was prevailing here. They (the activists) had tried to break into the office. If we are alive now it is only because the door lock didn’t give in. We need security for lives and property,” an association office-bearer said after the meeting. “Under the situation, we are forced to keep our 120 colleges closed for a day, Thursday, as a token protest,” he said.
The association representative said they would go for an indefinite shutdown of their colleges if the situation failed to improve and if the Government failed to take steps to provide security for them. “We are limiting our protest presently to a one-day closure because university examinations are beginning on Friday,” he added.
“The decision is to constitute a high-level panel to comprehensively examine the physical and academic situation of the colleges,” said State Education Minister C Raveendranath after the Cabinet meeting. He said that a decision on the form of the committee would be taken after discussions with university authorities.
The managements association welcomed the Government decision to constitute the panel. The Technological University will send its experts to the 155 engineering colleges in the State to study the situations prevailing there. The renewal of affiliation of the colleges to the university will depend on the findings in these studies.
The Nehru College authorities have denied allegations of torturing Jishnu, who was found hanging in a bathroom of the college hostel, and claimed that all they had done was to advise him after he was caught committing malpractice during an examination. But university authorities said they had not received any report on such malpractice from the college.
However, students’ unions and students of Nehru College alleged that Jishnu had suffered brutal torture in the hands of the college authorities. Shocking allegations have come out against the college in the wake of Jishnu’s death and students’ organizations accused the college authorities of keeping a room in the premises specially for torturing students.
On Wednesday, a team of the Crime Branch of the State police probing the incident reportedly found a letter, presumably Jishnu’s suicide note, from a drain of the bathroom in the college hostel. The note read, “My life and dreams have been shattered”. However, the police said they were yet to find out whether the note was actually written by Jishnu.