Hindustan Times (Jalandhar)

‘Overburden­ed’ professor hangs self at Sirsa university

TRAGIC END Praveen Aghamkar, 48, committed suicide at his residence at Chaudhry Devi Lal University; colleagues claim he was upset at being ‘overburden­ed’ with responsibi­lity of exam controller

- HT Correspond­ent letterschd@hindustant­imes.com

A physics professor at Chaudhry Devi Lal University (CDLU), Sirsa, allegedly committed suicide at his residence in the university campus on Wednesday. Praveen Aghamkar, 48, who hails from Maharashtr­a, hanged himself in the bathroom using his wife’s dupatta, the police said.

Aghamkar was living with his wife and daughter at the university campus for the past 10 years. On Wednesday morning, he went to the bathroom but did not come out after a long time. When he did not answer his wife’s calls, she brought a guard who broke open the door to find Aghamkar hanging.

He was rushed to the local civil hospital where doctors pronounced him brought dead.

While Aghamkar did not leave any suicide note, his colleagues at the university said he was upset at being “overburden­ed” with the responsibi­lity of controller of examinatio­n.

“Whenever he would meet us, he would complain about this additional responsibi­lity. He was very disturbed and had resigned from this charge, but the univerrsit­y did not relieve him. He was given the ultimatum to declare results by tomorrow, even though he was not given any staff to help,” said Rajesh Malik, a colleague of Aghamkar at CDLU.

Some other staff members also said Aghamkar was unnecessar- ily harassed by university authoritie­s and was overburden­ed with work. The university staff created ruckus inside the cabin of vice-chancellor Vijay Kayat, blaming him of carrying on with his work despite the tragedy.

The police said they could not ascertain the reason behind the suicide as of now. “We have sent the body for postmortem and have called his relatives from his ancestral place. An investigat­ion is going on following which things will get clear,” said Vinod Kumar, SHO of Sirsa city police station.

SOME UNIVERSITY STAFFERS HELD A PROTEST AND CREATED RUCKUS INSIDE CABIN OF VICECHANCE­LLOR VIJAY KAYAT

 ??  ?? Prof Praveen Aghamkar
Prof Praveen Aghamkar

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