At the time when the re-verification results were announced, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) had claimed that there were no changes in the result status of the 23 students who ended their lives over their poor scores. However, the family of one student now alleges that the claim made by the BIE secretary M Ashok is a lie.
For the family of Arutla Anamika, who killed herself on April 18 after she failed the Telugu paper, the re-verification results were heartbreaking. In the re-verification, Anamika had cleared the subject scoring 48 marks. The family of the student told TNM they will be filing a case against TSBIE for lying and for negligence.
Speaking to TNM, Anamika’s sister Udaya A said, "I am going now to the Gandhi Nagar Police station to file a case against the TSBIE. This is completely their fault. This is not a case of one or two marks, the difference is between 20 and 48 marks, how could they forget to calculate 28 marks?" The grieving sister added that Anamika was confident of clearing her intermediate and never expected to fail in any subject. The student had failed only in Telugu.Anamika was an NSS cadet and was shortlisted for further training in Delhi.
When the re-verification results were announced on May 27, the TSBIE secretary M Ashok told the media that 23 students killed themselves and another three students attempted to do so. Out of the 23 students, 20 had failed and two students had passed but they took the extreme step over not scoring the marks that they expected, said the official.
A total of 1,137 students cleared the exams as their marks were revised following re-verification of their answer scripts. The board had reevaluated answer sheets of 3.82 lakh students.
Out of 9.43 lakh students who appeared in the exams, 5.60 lakh had cleared it when the results were announced on April 18. However, after the result announcement, many errors by the authorities in the valuation of answer scripts and processing the results came to light, triggering a public outcry.
A spate of suicides by students following the results kicked up a storm with opposition parties and student bodies taking to the streets demanding justice for the students. The officials even came out with a factfinding report to probe the root cause of the problem but no proactive steps have been taken by the board based on the report.
Child rights activist, Achyuta Rao of Hyderabad-based Balala Hakkula Sangham is now demanding the arrest of the Secretary, M Ashok and making him responsible for the death of 23 Intermediate students. "It is now clear that Board’s negligence lead to this suicide of the student on April 18. As per the High Court order based on the petition filed by us, the TSBIE should upload the exam answer sheets of all students but so far 19,000 answer sheets are yet to be uploaded. This is a contempt of court and the officials are citing technical difficulties as usual,” he added.