Tasleema Sultana, a student pursuing her distance education from Osmania University, had struggled a lot to prepare herself for her Master’s degree examination today. Her dreams were shattered when the staff at Scholars Degree College for Women in Gaddiannaram, Dilsukhnagar, an examination centre of the Osmania University, allegedly refused to consider her plea to allot her a seat in the ground floor, as she is six months pregnant.
During her second trimester, the 25-year-old first-year student of English Literature had developed some complications. Hence, she requested the staff to allow her a seat on the ground floor, although she was allotted to the fourth floor.
However, the staff, allegedly, responded insensitively and asked her to ‘walk slowly’ and reach her designated seat.
Disappointed and unable to convince the staff, she returned home without writing the examination. She then narrated the ordeal to her husband, who then approached the Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) spokesperson Amjed Ullah.
Amjed shared the incident on Twitter and expressed his resentment. He also tagged the Minister of Information and Technology KT Rama Rao and Osmania University in his tweet.
Several netizens expressed their anger over the incident and condemned the actions of the college.
Incidentally, the MBT spokesperson also tagged the Telangana police and sought their intervention. The Malakpet police then reached out to Scholars Degree College for Gaddiannaram, which said that the victim was late by one hour.
Tasleema, a resident of Tolichowki, however, denied this accusation and said that she was in the college much before the commencement of the examination.
“I was in the hall at 11.40 am, even though the examination starts at 2 pm. I explained the staff at the ground floor my complications and pleaded with them to give me a seat there; but they refused to consider my situation,” she said, adding, “Instead, they asked me to walk slowly and reach the fourth floor. Besides, there was no lift to reach there. Since I did not want to take any risk, I returned home, even though I prepared well for the exam.”
The college told the police that they had allowed five other pregnant women to sit on the ground floor, considering their health and despite being late by 30 minutes.