Class 11 student ends life at Telangana school

Hyderabad, Feb 20:  Police were probing the sexual harassment angle after an intermediate first year (Class 11) student hanged himself at Telangana Social Welfare Residential College near here.

The 17-year-old student was found hanging in a classroom at the college located at Gowlidoddi on Saturday, sending shock waves among the student community at the government-run residential school.

Vamsi Krishna, hailing from a village in Nagarkurnool district, was a student of intermediate first year and had returned to the college hostel on January 31 when the college reopened after the third phase of Covid-19 pandemic.

According to police, the student ended his life in one of the classrooms on the intervening night of February 18 and 19. The college staff noticed the boy absent from daily morning drill on Saturday and started looking for him. They found one of the classrooms locked. They broke it open to find him hanging from the roof.

Police shifted the body to the government-run Osmania Hospital for autopsy. They found two suicide notes from his belongings. In one of the notes, he wrote that he was sexually harassed and he could not disclose this to his parents and teachers.

In another suicide note, the student wrote that he was taking the extreme step as he was suffering from blood cancer.

Vamsi Krishna's parents and other relatives who rushed to Hyderabad on receiving the information staged a protest against the negligence by the college authorities. They wanted to know what the in-charge of the hostel was doing when he left the hostel to go towards classrooms.

A case of death under suspicious circumstances was registered at Gachibowli police station under Cyberabad police commissionerate. Circle inspector Gone Suresh said they were probing the case from all angles.