The Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle has stated that their faculty advisor whose name has come up in relation to Fathima Latheef's suicide has stepped down from his position. The APSC has also demanded that a fair and transparent be conducted into the suicide.
However, a recent news article from The Lede states that Fathima's father said that the image of the 'suicide note' going viral with the name of Prof Miling Brahme and Hemachandran Karah is fake. “Fathima has named Professor Brahme in her notes but she stated that she had held debates with him at various times. She has not held him or any other professor except Sudarshan Padmanabhan responsible for her death. That particular image is a fake one,” Fathima's father told Lede.
In their statement, the APSC said that after they came to know about the professor's name surfacing with regard to the suicide, he had stepped down with immediate effect, pending investigation. The APSC although condemned the attempts to delegitimise APSC in this regard, "We condemn the malicious and false right-wing propaganda attempting to delegitimize APSC in this regard. These actions will not stop us from spreading the thoughts of Ambedkar and Periyar inside campus and in society," they said in their statement.
Reiterating the fact that the APSC has functioned for the last five years as an independent body, the members said that had always taken the side of social justice. "We have always taken the side of social justice and people’s rights. In Fathima’s case, our demand has always been that all those related to her death should be properly investigated and those responsible should be punished. We were very much part of the protest organized by students raising this demand," the members claimed. They also criticised sections of the media who had allegedly wrongly attributed statements to their members.
APSC also put forth three demands, similar to the ones made by the student community on IITM campus — an internal investigation committee containing representatives of all the stakeholders to conduct a fair, transparent and time-bound manner, including all allegations made by her family. Secondly, the administration's complete cooperation with the police and finally, to constitute an expert committee to study structural and individual problems affecting the students.
