Chennai: The father and twin sister of Fathima Latheef, the IIT student who had committed suicide in her hostel room on November 9 allegedly leaving behind a suicide note on her mobile phone naming three of her professors as the tormentors causing her death, came here from hometown Kollam on Wednesday following summons from the Crime Branch Police and handed over Fathima's mobile phone for forensic tests.
The father, Abdul Latheef, said he has sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was expecting to soon get an appointment with him. He also wished to see TN Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami but he was away on official engagements in the districts, Latheef told reporters.
Along with Fathima’s twin sister Ayisha, he visited the state forensic directorate to hand over the mobile phone, laptop and tab of the dead girl to aid the probe.
Abdul has claimed that these have all the details regarding his daughter's death. The family has demanded that the police probe team should open the mobile phone only in their presence.
It may be recalled that Fathima had not left any suicide note.
The family later claimed that her mobile phone, retrieved from the hostel room when they rushed from Kollam on hearing about her suicide, contained a note stating she was harassed by three professors and particularly named one of them as the main cause for her death. However, enquiries at the IIT-M revealed that the professor she had allegedly singled out among the three men “is an extremely soft gentleman and a very committed teacher”.
Before starting for Chennai, Abdul had told the media at Kollam that he would move the Madras High Court seeking an internal enquiry in the IIT-M by an independent agency to bring out the sequence of events that had led to Fathima taking the extreme step.
Fathima's family has alleged that she was driven to suicide due to harassment by her teachers, including Islam-bashing by the IIT-M faculty.
The institution responded with a statement flatly denying the harassment charge and expressing anguish that such baseless allegations and the media trial could dent the good reputation it has earned over years of hard work, besides demoralising its faculty and students.
Considering the sensitivity of the case and the seriousness of the family’s charge, the government constituted a crack team of investigators from the city crime branch headed by its Additional Commissioner C Easwaramoothy, who is rated among the most brilliant minds in the TN police department with vast experience in the state intelligence as well as the CBI.
It is said that he is personally handling most of the investigation in this case.
