Bengaluru: Bullied engineering student kills herself

BENGALURU: An 18-year-old engineering student committed suicide by hanging herself at her house reportedly after being bullied by her classmates on Tuesday afternoon.

The deceased has been identified as Meghana, a resident of Channasandra and was studying second semester civil engineering at Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering. Her father, Chandrashekar is visually impaired and works at a bank, while her mother Latha is a homemaker. She has an elder sister Bhavana.

According to the police, on Tuesday morning she left for college as usual and returned home early while her mother went to drop her father to his office and her elder sister was at her CAD classes.

She committed suicide by hanging herself to the ceiling fan. The incident came to light when her mother returned home and informed the police.

The family claims that she was bullied by her classmates and they had isolated her. Her parents allege that even after several complaints, the Head of the Department (HOD) did not take any action against them and instead supported them. The family has named Soudhamini, Sandeep, Nikhil, Sandhya and the HoD Rajkumar in their complaint.

The victim’s sister Bhavana told Deccan Chronicle that the problem began three months back when her sister stood for the Class Representative post and lost the elections. Her rival team often used to pick fight with and rag her in front of the whole class.

Earlier also she was being targeted for small fights, where the HoD supported the other students and blamed her. Meghana was also removed from the class WhatsApp group and they also made sure that no one helped her during the exams.

Even the HoD was in the WhatsApp group and in fact he was the one who removed her from the group. She suffered a lot during the exams with no proper study material, she added.

Her mother, Latha said that she visited the college in November and requested the HoD to take action against students who were bullying her. But he called the rest of them and asked how they got a seat in the college and insulted her family by indicating that she got in through CET, while others through payment seats. He instead advised her to ‘adjust’ with the rest.

She further said that even after several complaints the college did not take any action. Few days back her classmates came near our house and picked up a fight with her. I went and requested them not to trouble her, but they continued to do so.

He often came back home crying from college and requested me not to interfere as they had started to pick on that also.

Her sister said that she was happy during the semester holidays. The college reopened on January 28 and she didn’t want to go back to the same class where everyone bullied her. We thought of requesting the HoD to change the section and three days back she had approached the HoD, but he did not respond to her request.

She was made to sit alone in the class and she was depressed. We blame her classmates who kept bullying her and the college authorities who failed to take any actions against them, these people made her to end her own life, her mother said.

The college authorities denied all the allegations made by the family members and said that there are no such class representatives in any sections and no WhatsApp group was created.  

The police are investigating the case and are searching for HoD Rajkumar who is absconding.