The Crime Investigation Department (CID) which was investigating the suicide of a 30-year-old post-graduate medical student of SV Medical College in Tirupati, who had accused three professors of sexual harassment and killed herself, has indicted a senior professor in the case.
The CID's Special Investigation Team (SIT) which submitted its report also named two other professors from the university for abetting the crime. A chargesheet is expected to be filed soon in the case.
According to media reports, CID SP Ammi Reddy said that their findings showed that Dr P Ravi Kumar, who headed the Department of Paediatrics used to harass the woman over the phone and also added that Dr Kireeti and Dr Sashi Kumar abetted this behaviour.
The 30-year-old student was found hanging at her home at Pileru town in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district in August, which had triggered massive protests at the college, with students staging a sit-in and demanding that action be taken against the accused professors.
Earlier in the year, the woman had also written to Governor ESL Narasimhan seeking his intervention and action against the three professors.
"There is no right teacher-student relationship in the department. Everyone is under pressure and unable to come out and express their feelings," her letter to the governor had said, according to another college student at the time of her demise.
The governor had ordered an inquiry following her charges and the college management had formed a committee to look into the issue. However, no action had been taken by the committee.
When the results to post-graduate examinations that were held earlier this year, the student did not get passing marks. She had told her friends that she felt she was being deliberately failed because she lodged the complaint against her professors.
The student’s relatives have alleged that the inquiry committee had not submitted its report and the three professors had gone to the media describing her as mentally unsound. They said the attitude of the professors had caused her mental agony and drove her to take this drastic step.