Hyderabad: Exactly eight months after Rohith Vemula’s suicide on January 17, the UoH witnessed another suicide on Saturday, that of first year Masters in Fine Arts student Nelli Praveen Kumar, hailing from Shadnagar in Mahbubnagar district. At around 4:15 am Praveen’s roommate Raja Shekaran Mari Raj, came back to the hostel from his painting studio. When the door was not opened by Praveen, Raja called others for help. They forced the door open and found Praveen hanging.
Raj then took his roommate on a two-wheeler to the UoH health centre where the medical officer sent the patient to a private hospital in Nallagandla. There he was declared dead. After Praveen was declared dead at around 5:15 am, a complaint was filed at the Gachibowli police station. The reasons for the suicide have not been confirmed as no note was found in Praveen’s room. But in a notebook found by the police, they found an entry, most probably by Praveen, on how he was battling unhappiness over his performance in studies and loneliness. DCP (Madhapur) Karthikeya said that two notebooks, a laptop, two cellphones and one tablet were seized from Praveen’s room. They will be sent for forensic examination.
Praveen’s suicide came as a shock to his parents. His father, Narsimulu, a BSNL employee said, “Praveen did not tell me anything.” Praveen’s body was taken to Shadnagar on Saturday after post-mortem at the Osmania General Hospital. There is some ambiguity on whether the UoH ambulance arrived in time after the suicide of Praveen was reported by students to the university health centre.
Ram Kumar, a student of the Hindi department, who helped remove the noose around Praveen’s neck before taking him to the health centre said, “When I called the health centre no one answered. I made two more calls which were answered but the ambulance was not sent. The ambulance did not arrive even after 20 minutes of the second call. It was then that we decided to take Praveen’s body to the health centre on a two-wheeler.” He said they reached the health centre at around 4:50 am. However, UoH denied there was any delay. Pro V-C Vipin Srivastava, said there was no delay in sending ambulance.
