When Anadi Dixit, father of Ananya, a deceased medical student, approached the Supreme Court to get justice for his daughter, he was supported by other parents who are alarmed at the number of apparent suicides of students. Within 10 days of joining Sri Ram Murti Smarak (SRMS) Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, in September, 2017, Ananya was found hanging from her hostel ceiling fan. According to the police, Ananya hanged herself due to depression, but her parents have refuted this version and have blamed the college authorities for hushing up the matter.
Now, her death has brought together the parents of other students who too were found dead in the same campus hostel under mysterious conditions. They all allege that there is a similar pattern in all these deaths as there are no suicide notes.
An online campaign under “Justice for Ananya” was also initiated on change.org which went viral on several social networking sites. As of 2018, around eight such mysterious deaths have been reported from the campus.
The first case is said to have been reported in 2002 when a second-year student, Yogesh Mishra, died at SRMS College after consuming poison.
Thereafter Anika Singhal was found hanging in her room and two years later, Deepak Tripathi allegedly committed suicide.
That same year, Syed Hassan Mehndi, a second-year student, was found dead under suspicious circumstances. In 2015, a third-year student, Priyanka Singh, was also found hanging in her room, as was Yash Kumar, a first-year student, a year later. In September 2017, Ananya Dixit was found similarly circumstances while in 2018, a student named Harshit was found dead in suspicious circumstances. The fact is that there is no stop to such mysterious deaths even after complaints have been raised at various levels, including the National Human Rights Commission which has asked for a detailed report on these deaths on the campus.
The petitioner, Anadi Dixit, alleges that the local police has not been probing the deaths properly which forced him to take the matter to the Supreme Court, seeking a CBI probe. The petitioner also asked for the de-licensing of the institute by the Medical Council of India. The petitioner’s most serious allegation is that the college authorities have tampered with the evidence, stalled proper investigation by police, and influenced the media in regard to these cases. The matter will now be listed in the Court for arguments.