Protest over student suicides at PES University

Nearly 100 people gathered at Freedom Park on Saturday to protest the student suicides at PES University.

“Nine months, four suicides, one university, why?”, “arrest the bullies”, “ragging by officials is official ragging”, “criminalise student harassment”, “say no to PES”, “no more student deaths”—these were just some of the messages written on the placards held by the protesters.

In the last nine months, four suicides have been reported at PES University, one from the Girinagar campus and three others from the Electronics City campus alone.

The protesters demanded government intervention, an investigation into suicides at PES University, and a determined effort to understand the pattern behind the four suicides.

Dushyant Dubey, a social worker who uses the moniker St Broseph on social media, said, “Nine months ago, we staged a protest to get justice for Aditya Prabhu at this very spot. The slogans raised that day were ‘No More Student Deaths’, and ‘Investigate PES University’. Since then, letters and several memorandums were submitted to the Government of Karnataka and the Central Education Minister.

“However, no action was taken against PES University till date, and the professors of PES University, against whom a charge sheet was filed in Aditya Prabhu’s suicide, were not even suspended,” Dubey said.

The protesters further urged Karnataka Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar to push for amendments to the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, to criminalise the harassment of students by higher education authorities, akin to ragging.