Veterinary student death: he was‘physically and mentally tortured’: report
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New Delhi: The veterinary student, found dead in a college hostel in Wayanad, was "continuously" assaulted for 29 hours by seniors and classmates before he died by suicide, as per the case file that police handed to the CBI, NDTV reported citing The Indian Express.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the probe into the death of the 20-year-old Sidharthan after the state government referred the case to the agency.
The victim’s family alleged ragging of him by students including activists of the left leaning the Students' Federation of India (SFI).
As per the report written by Sub-inspector Prashobh PV of Vythiri police station the seniors and peers "physically and mentally tortured" Sidharthan, which drove him to commit suicide.
‘... They assaulted Sidharthan on February 16 from 9 am to 2 pm till February 17 continuously with hand and using a belt and subjected him to cruel ragging. This made him in an utter stage of mental stress and feeling that he can neither continue study in the Institute and complete this course nor go home dropping the course. As he is so mentally stressed, he felt that there is no option for him other than suicide, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the bathroom of men's hostel in between 12.30 pm and 13.45 pm on February 18,’ The Indian Express quoted the police report as stating.
The CBI re-registered the FIR filed at the Vythiri police station against 20 people on Friday night as part of the central agency’s procedure while taking over investigation into state-referred cases.
Following the political uproar with the opposition coming down heavily on the government, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan offered CBI probe on March 9.
Earlier both the Opposition Congress and the BJP alongside the student’s family alleged that the state government was deliberately delaying the CBI probe by not handing them files and destroying evidence.