Prof M R Doreswamy, Founder and Chairman, PES Institutions, insisted that students protested because of the delay in sending the body for the post-mortem, something the college management had no role to play in. “We did our job efficiently and there was no laxity. It’s unfortunate that students misunderstood us and rushed to protest,” Doreswamy told Deccan Herald.

Pranay was an ‘average’ student and had one backlog subject in the first year. Prof Doreswamy said although E&C was a difficult stream, the college had put in place a redress mechanism for weak students. Terming the suicide “completely unwarranted”, he said:

“Even if Pranay struggled in a few subjects, he shouldn’t have lost heart. Such pressures are part of modern life.” When asked if PESIT, being an autonomous college, overburdened the students, Prof Doreswamy said they were merely following the VTU guidelines.

According to the principal, Dr K N Balasubramanya Murthy, classroom committee meetings, faculty advisors’ meetings, remedial classes, parent-teacher meetings, etc were part of the mechanism to help the weak students. He was, however, unsure if Pranay had benefited from any of these. Pranay shared a room with another student in the hostel till 20 days ago when he opted for an independent room.

His attendance in the classroom was satisfactory but he had skipped two papers in Test 2. His performance in Test 1 was bad. Dr Murthy said that Pranay’s progress cards were sent to his parents thrice every semester. The warden, Seetharaman, usually stays in the hostel but was out of station for the last three days for the treatment of his wife who is diagnosed with cancer. He arrived at the hostel around 7.30 am just when Pranay’s suicide came to light, Dr Murthy added.

Dr Murthy sought to clear the air on students’ protest and said the college followed all procedures diligently. “We locked the room and did not let anyone in. We promptly informed the police but they arrived late. The patrol vehicle reached the spot around 8.30 am and the inspector at 9.30 am,” he said.