Odisha's self-immolation case: Victim's friend says HoD threatens to fail her if she didn't fulfil his demands; claims principal provoked her

NEW DELHI: A new development came in the Balashore self-immolation case, where the victim's friend on Friday claimed that the HoD threatened to fail her if she didn't fulfil his demands and accused the principal of provoking her to reach such an extent that she killed herself.

The victim, a 20-year-old second-year B.Ed student at Fakir Mohan (Autonomous) College, Balasore, died after setting herself ablaze on July 12 outside the college gate during a peaceful protest that had been ongoing since July 1, demanding action against the head of the education department.The B.Ed student's friend Koshish Das also said that the HoD has been doing this for six months with her. "All of this was going on with her for six months...

On 30 June, she told us that the HoD had stooped to the extent of telling her, 'I will fail you. I will keep you in this class for six years. You will not be able to leave this college till I am here.' Her backlogs were deliberately not being cleared. She was extremely depressed... She told us that she wants support to go and talk to the principal about this. We submitted an application to the principal, requesting immediate action.

.." she said.

Giving details about the July 12 incident, Das said, "she wanted to speak to the principal... She kept waiting outside the principal's chamber, since there was a large crowd for admissions. We waited there for two hours, but then we told her, 'Let's have our lunch, and afterwards we can talk to the principal.' But before we could come back, we were told that she had lit herself on fire. By the time we got back, the college had been sealed, and I couldn't even see what condition she was in.

The principal or some authority must have provoked her..."Das also said that after the incident, the HoD had gathered many students to write an application against the victim and claimed that most of the fellow mates hate her because she was part of ABVP. The victim was used as a political tool for students, who wrote an application assassinating her character to principal, the friend said. " These students were in opposition to her (the victim), since she was in ABVP.

She had become a political tool for these students, who wrote an application in which they assassinated her character, and submitted it to the principal. Her own friends, classmates, and juniors started making fun of her, spreading rumours about her, and even started trolling her online. She was mentally frustrated and drained...""If everyone had raised above the political agenda and stood for a girl's justice, then she may have been alive today... It is my fault, too, that I left her to go eat at that moment. It is the fault of the college authorities and the students, too, who were present at the time and didn't stop her..." she added.