IIT student suicide: Case transferred to Crime Branch

Chennai Police on Thursday transferred the case of suicide by an IIT post-graduate student hailing from Kerala to the Central Crime Branch (CCB), as pressure mounted in the wake of fresh allegations by parents that their daughter was subjected to religious discrimination.

Chennai Police Commissioner A K Viswanathan made the announcement after visiting the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-M) campus which witnessed several protests inside and outside on the issue on Thursday.

The CB-CID team probing the incident will be headed by CCB’s Joint Commissioner C Eswaramoorthy will consist of two officers, including Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police for Crimes against women and children S Megalina, who will be the investigating officer.

“The decision to transfer the case to CCB has been taken since this has become a sensitive issue. We have also decided to have senior officers in the team that will investigate this sensitive case,” Viswanathan said.

Fatima Lateef, a first-year student of the MA integrated programme in the Humanities department, was found dead in her hostel room last week. Though no suicide note was recovered from her room, the young girl’s parents have alleged harassment by some professors in the department as the cause for their daughter’s suicide.

The father and mother have also alleged that their daughter was subjected to religious discrimination and wanted the probe to look into this angle as well.

“Our daughter secured a seat in a university in Varanasi, but we did not send her due to fear. We were scared of mob lynching and we decided to send her to Chennai because we thought this is a much safer place. But what to do? Her name was Fathima,” the girl’s mother said, suggesting that she was targeted because of her religion.

Notes found in the mobile phone used by Fatima Lateef, who hailed from Kollam in Kerala, have allegedly blamed a few professors in the department of harassing her. As the issue gained momentum, various political parties protested outside the IIT-M on Thursday demanding a “free and fair probe” into the suicide of Fatima Lateef.

The distraught mother of the young girl alleged that some professors had harassed Fathima Lateef after she argued with him on internal marks. “I can say for sure that my daughter faced harassment in IIT-Madras from some professors. They can’t brush it aside,” the mother said.

However, the department refuted the allegations of harassment, while the IIT-M condoled the death of Fathima Lateef, while listing the measures taken to prevent suicide at its campus.