MUTHUKRISHNAN WAS HOUNDED
In a major development in the case of the alleged suicide by the Dalit Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, the friends of the deceased J Muthukrishan made some serious allegations that the victim was harassed by a group of boys within the campus. The friends have given their statement in writing to the police.
Officers of the Delhi Police recorded the statement of the six students, some of whom have accused some other students in the JNU campus of hounding Muthukrishnan.
“He repeatedly told me that he was harassed by some boys belonging to a particular group. They followed him even in the mess and tried to pick up fight with him, which disturbed him,” said a friend of Muthukrishnan, who was a research scholar in the varsity.
This friend claimed that Muthukrishnan was, in fact, “obsessed” with the harassment and the former did not remember a meeting where the victim failed to talk about “those students.”
“Yes, he was followed by them. They harassed him. This was on his mind every time. We have told this to the police investigators,” said another friend.
Most students, however, claim that the discrimination prevalent in the JNU administration and the overall antiDalit environment resulted in Muthukrishnan taking the extreme step.
“I was the second topper in Mphil/phd entrance test in JNU, but can you believe I was just given eight marks in viva voce out of 30. You can imagine the discrimination in JNU. This hostile environment took away Muthu,” said Anubhuti, an M Phil student, as she sat on the ground, waiting for Muthukrishnan’s post-mortem to be complete.
Dissatisfaction and discrimination were the words doing rounds among the students present at the AIIMS mortuary on Wednesday, where the postmortem of Muthukrishnan was conducted. In many instances, the students from South India, who belong to Dalit families, showed resentment over the alleged maltreatment meted out to them by the University administration.