CBI rules out mental harassment as a cause in Fathima Latheef's death

Chennai: The death of Fathima Lateef, a 19 year-old student of IIT Madras was due to suicide and there was no evidence of foul play or mental harassment in her unfortunate death, the Central Bureau Investigation report submitted on Friday said.

The report confirms earlier submissions by the Special Investigation Team which had probed the teenager's death in 2019, following an outcry by family and students who alleged that she was driven to suicide and had allegedly named one of her professors in the suicide note.

Fathima, a native of Kollam, was a first year Humanities student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai. She was found dead in her hostel in November 2019. The Additional Commissioner of Police, Tamil Nadu, S Easwaramoorthy in his report in 2019 had also stated that Fathima died by suicide and that she was feeling homesick.

The same reasons as quoted in the 2000 page report submitted by the CBI.

Fathima's family however, has refused to accept the conclusions reached by the investigating teams and are planning to lay bare alleged lapses in the investigation during a court hearing on February 28.

"We have serious objections to the CBI's final report stating that it was suicide...The warden seems to be highly enthusiastic to explain to the CBI that Fathima had homesickness and the CBI had taken his statement on face value," said Advocate Mohammed Shah PA, counsel for Fathima's family to the media.

"The CBI concludes that Fathima is having psychological issues. We want the CBI to answer as to why the girl did not mention the name of any other professor except one. We will raise this issue during the judicial hearing," he said.

Fathima's father Abdul Latheef alleged that she was subjected to mental torture and harassment, which pushed her to take her own life. Fathima's father met the Chief Ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and there were student protests on the college campus following her death.

The state government then transferred the case to the Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, who reported that it was a case of suicide. The case was then handed over to the CBI in December 2019.