Thursday, July 08, 2010

Four students attempt suicide

Warangal, July 2: Four Kerala-based final year nursing students studying at Rohini School of Nursing here attempted suicide by consuming sleeping pills after they were reportedly reprimanded by their nursing school principal for indulging in ragging of junior students.
All the four, admitted to Rohini hospital’s intensive care unit following their suicide attempt on Thursday night, are out of danger now.

The students have been identified as Betsy Antony, 21, Jinchu Michael, 21, KR Reshmi, 21 and Jigimol Chako, 20. According to sources, the Rohini School of Nursing, near Subedari, which runs a four-year nursing course, has mostly students belonging to Kerala and Manipur.
The present final year batch here has 58 students, including 12 from Manipur, while the rest are from Kerala.Justify Full

While ragging of junior students, who also hail from these two states, seem to be common here, sources said that the four girls felt disgraced when the nursing school principal Sister Nirmala selectively targeted them.

“There were other senior students, who too indulged in ragging of juniors, but only we four were targeted by the principal,” said Betsy Antony, one of the four girls, now recuperating in Rohini Hospital.

Speaking to this newspaper, she said, “The principal of the nursing school used abusive words against us four weeks ago when we scolded a first year student for not working.”

The students also alleged that they were ‘targeted’ by the principal on many other occasions.
However, Dalit Sena leader D. Suresh, who exposed the suicide drama, pointed fingers at the hospital-cum-nursing school administration.

“If the nursing school management did no wrong, then it should have informed police as soon as the girls attempted suicide last night,” he argued. Subedari police station SI Satish Vasala, who reached the spot immediately, said that they were still verifying the facts. “We are looking at all angles. The students complained of harassment by their principal,” he said, adding that they would register cases under appropriate section of IPC.

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