By Amrita Singh:
On August 10, Sushant Rohilla, a 3rd year student of Amity Law School, Delhi committed suicide at his residence in New Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar. Sushant was debarred from giving end semester exams on account of low attendance and later found out that he was detained and would have to repeat a year. Friends and relatives of Sushant are alleging that he took this extreme step due to “mental harassment” by the college administration regarding his detainment on account of low attendance.
The college is affiliated to Delhi’s Indraprastha University and is a part of Amity University, so it has to follow guidelines of both the institutions. Sushant, along with 18 other students, was informed by the institution that he would be debarred from giving the previous semester’s examinations and would be allowed to give them next year.
According to one of the debarred students, they found out that they had been detained and would have to repeat an entire year much later. One of the students’ Facebook post said, “Thirteen students found it easier to rather change their college altogether than repeat a year at ALSD.”
Sushant’s mail addressed to Dr. Ashok Chauhan, Director ALS, has also been released on Facebook by his uncle wherein he’s pleading for mercy and has said that he will “not mentally survive this”. According to the mail and his friends, Sushant had suffered from a foot injury because of which he had to skip classes. And being a student who was actively involved in college, it came as a major blow to him when the institution refused to help him out.
Students of the college have taken to social media to share similar instances and have changed their profile pictures to an image, “Justice for Sushant”. “ALSD Alumni Against Atrocities”, a Facebook page has been actively sharing these experiences since this incident took place. As students and alumni wanted to share similar unfortunate encounters, the page has referred them all to an alumnus of the Institute, Keshav Datta. Keshav has mailed a report of the entire incident on the basis of the mails he has received to Campus Watch as well.
Keshav’s mail states that Sushant was an excellent student, “He was the President of the Debate Society; he successfully helped organised (sic) 3 editions of moot court competitions: he managed the souvenir committee and brought in lots of sponsors for the event; his team was the runners up in the 1st international RK Tanka memorial moot court competition, 2016 organised by NLIU Bhopal; he mentored a team of juniors who went on to win the USLLS Moot Court Competition; he helped organise the ALSD Symposium, 2015.” A few students have also vouched for the same.
As per the aforementioned mail, the “ALSD Alumni against Atrocities” Facebook Page and a number of students that Campus Watch has spoken to, a faculty member, Dr. Isheeta Rutabhasini, is being accused for all the harassment they have been through. She is also being referred to as the “De facto Director” by the students.
The students protested today from 9.30 am to 12 noon in front of Gate 1 of Amity University, for justice for Sushant. The college authorities were initially insisting that the students go inside campus to protest, but the students refused as they believed that would defeat the purpose. So they screamed slogans like “Jab tak istifa nahi aega, koi andar nahi jaega” (“No student will go inside unless there’s a resignation”). Later,the ALSD authorities also came out with a statement stating that IP University had made the decision and ALSD has no role in it.
Mehak Rohilla, Sushant’s sister had earlier posted on Facebook, “What kind of monsters are running this University.. My little one was begging for mercy.. And for what! To be able to sit for exams! Every academic year matters to student. And he put his heart and soul for this college.. He made sure people worked towards the college. Poor thing. He thought that would matter to them.” His father and uncle have also been vocal on social media about the same. Students and the alumni are coming together to fight for justice in hope that the truth comes to fore and Sushant gets justice.
[su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#090a08″ link_color=”#fff” size=”2″ margin=”10″]
Take campus conversations to the next level. Become a YKA Campus Correspondent today! Mail us at campus@youthkiawaaz.com.
You can also subscribe to the Campus Watch Newsletter, here.