Jishnu PrannoyKochi: Jishnu Pranoy was taken to the board room of the Nehru College at Pampady and tortured with the knowledge of trust chairman Krishna Das before he committed suicide, the police told the Kerala high court citing circumstantial evidence.
The crestfallen student committed suicide on the same day he was debarred for three semesters, Irinjalakkuda ASP Kiran Narayanan told the court, which is considering an anticipatory bail petition from Krishna Das.
The college management was intentionally targeting the student by raising a false allegation of exam malpractice against him, he said.
Pranoy, who had secured admission to an engineering course under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota in 2016, rubbed the college management the wrong way when he reacted to several issues including exam rescheduling and organized other students in support.
The accused including Krishna Das conspired to get even with the student, a former SFI activist, the police said. On January 6, the teacher at the exam hall snatched Pranoy's answer sheet minutes ahead of the closing time and alleged that the student had cheated.
He was intimidated in the exam hall in the presence of other students and was even forced to strike out the answers he had written. His id card and hall ticket were seized before he was taken to the principal's room, where he was made to wait for an hour. Then he was forced to sign on a blank paper.
Though the principal had warned against any extreme measures, the college management debarred Pranoy for three semesters. They did not have any roof of malpractice though.
All this happened with the knowledge of Krishna Das, the police said.
Krishna Das is the prime accused in the case. K.V. Sanjit, Sakthivel, C.P. Praveen and Dipin are the other accused.
The accused also tried to destruct evidence by erasing the surveillance camera footage in the college. The cam and the hard disk at the administrative block were destroyed. The first three accused were directly involved in changing the crime scene, the police said. They washed blood stains off the board room’s wall and handed over fake documents which they said were written by the victim. Those papers were not written by Pranoy, forensic tests have revealed.
The accused even tried to mislead the officials of the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University.
Krishna Das was the man in charge of ensuring "discipline" across the institutions run by the Nehru Group. He has effectively used the board room to do his job by assaulting and harassing the students he targeted. His modus operandi included forcing the victims to sign a blank paper and using it to blackmail them if they went to the police.
The management also harassed the students by threatening to withhold their school certificates and tinkering with their exam sheets. The cruel and vengeful management has created a reign of terror on the campus, the police said.
Students who dared to act collectively were targeted by tampering with the attendance register and giving them poor marks in internal exams. They were sometimes falsely accused of ragging their juniors. The students were forced to fall in line with threats that resulted in financial losses and a stretching of their course.
