The All India Students' Association (AISA) has called for a protest against the suicide of IIT Madras student Fathima Latheef in front of the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) in Delhi at 1 pm. They demand an independent enquiry to be conducted and punishment for those guilty for the suicide of the 19-year-old student.
"Rohith, Muthukrishnan, Jisha, Payal Tadvi and now Fathima Lathief. How many more young scholars will have to die before we realise it is too much?" asked AISA National President N Sai Balaji. "We demand an independent enquiry to be conducted on the case and the guilty should be punished. We also demand that the Rohith Act be implemented in every campus to safeguard the students coming from marginalised and minority communities in the universities," he added in his statement.
Fathima's suicide, the students said, is an urgent reminder "for all of us to rise up against the systematic exclusion faced by students coming from marginalised and deprived sections in the campus". "It brings the dark realities of the caste and religious based discriminations existing in our academic spaces. The suicide of Fathima highlights the Islamophobic nature of our campuses and the need to fight it back," said Balaji.
The students of IIT Madras also held a protest on campus to demand an investigation into the suicide of Fathima Latheef, the first-year Master's student who committed suicide a few days ago. Several students have also signed a statement demanding various other grievance cells and sensitisation measures in order to prevent such incidents in the future.
