Chennai: Around 100 students from various colleges conducted a candle light rally to seek justice against recent suicides of four students from various engineering colleges on Sunday at Elliot beach.
Students at the rally consider the suicides of T. Abhinath from Sairam Engineering College, Ajith Kumar from St Joseph Engineering College, Gunasaleen from Mahendra Engineering College and Vignesh from Kathir Engineering College as institutional murder.
“We seek justice for all the four students. The atrocities and the torture they went through were intolerable,” a student from Engineering Student’s Federation said.
Highlighting the recent suicide case of Abhinath from Sairam Engineering college, several alumni students, requesting anonymity, said that P. Balu the campus director, who tortures students, was a librarian.
“It is very mysterious how he, being a librarian, was promoted to the post of campus director. No one knows where he stays and where is his family. He is not a chairman of the college yet holds so much power,” said a student.
There were other campus directors like Vasu and Leo Muthu. But none of them was like Balu, said past students.
Slogans like ‘goons get out of our colleges’, ‘no more casteism only humanity’, ‘it’s not suicide it’s institutional murder’, ‘we are students not slaves’ were shouted by the students.
Students also added that through this rally they wanted to make the corporates aware that they should not prefer such colleges for placements as the atmosphere in the colleges are not conducive for students. “Parents force students to get into these colleges for placements and the corporates also choose these colleges. But they should know the environment is terrorising inside. Therefore, they should stop coming to such colleges,” said a student.
