‘Insensitive policies forced Anitha to die’

CHENNAI: The suicide of Anitha, the dalit girl who spearheaded the fight against the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) exam, has sent shock waves across Tamil Nadu, with superstars such as Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan expressing grief over the tragedy. The daughter of a daily wage labourer, 17-yearold Anitha was one of the respondents against NEET in a Supreme Court case.

Despite scoring 1,176 in her class XII State Board examinations, she was unable to join MBBS course due to low scores in NEET. On Friday, she ended her life by committing suicide at her home in Ariyalur district. Her death triggered strong reactions from all quarters.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday accused the Centre of “imposing a uniform exam” without taking state governments into consideration. “A Dalit girl, a bold petitioner against the imposition of NEET instead of the existing School results for admission to MBBS — has to unfortunately kill herself as she did not score well in NEET,” Yechury said.

“Without taking state govts on board how does the Centre think it can impose a ‘uniform' exam? Lives of our Dalit and other marginalised youth are too high a cost to pay for such insensitive and inconsiderate policies.”

Political parties on Saturday staged statewide protests over the suicide and sought the immediate withdrawal of the entrance exam. A students' outfit tried to picket the government Multi- Super Speciality Hospital at Omanthurar Estate on the main road and its members were detained. The protestors raised slogans against the Central and state governments on the issue of National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET).

At Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district, a “wailing protest” was held by women members of pro-tamil ‘Naam Tamizhar Katchi'. Protests were also held at Coimbatore, Salem and Rameswaram by students' and youth outfits who demanded justice for the girl and sought immediate withdrawal of NEET.