A 20-year-old student, due to reappear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses on Sunday, died after falling from the third floor of a building in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore late Thursday night. It is the latest in a series of such cases since the cancellation of the test on May 12 due to the compromised paper.
The student was to reappear for the NEET on Sunday.
The 20-year-old’s sister said that the aspirant was under immense pressure, as this was her last chance to clear the exam after three failed attempts. The aspirant was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, where she succumbed to her injuries on Friday.
Santosh Dudhi, a police officer, said prima facie it appears to be a suicide, but they are not ruling out the possibility of an accident. “Her mobile phone has been seized, as she was speaking to someone at the time of the fall. The Forensic Science Laboratory team has inspected the scene.”
The aspirant, daughter of a medical officer from Dhar, was living with her sister in Indore. “She had failed three times, but this time she was confident of passing the exam. After the exam was cancelled, she was under stress. We enrolled her in a pharmacy course and advised her not to feel pressured, but she was unwilling to give up her dream of becoming a doctor,” her sister said.
The NEET (Undergraduate) was rescheduled after the test was cancelled on May 12, even though 2.27 million students had taken it across 551 cities. The central agencies found that the question paper was compromised. Questions were available on some phones as early as May 1, two days before the exam. It was the second time in two years that NEET came under scrutiny
On Thursday, the 20-year-old aspirant was speaking to her cousin around 11:30pm before going to the second floor of her building. Minutes later, she fell from the rooftop.
Investigators said her family encouraged her to pursue another profession after the aspirant attempted suicide in January. They have recorded statements from her family.
The opposition Congress, protesting against alleged irregularities in the NEET, blamed the government for the Indore death. “Now in Indore too: A NEET aspirant fell from the third floor and succumbed in the hospital. Her elder sister said she was stressed about the paper leak! The number of government-caused deaths is rising, yet why is not the resignation of the guilty party, the education minister, being sought?” said state Congress chief Jitu Patwari on X.
Two NEET aspirants died in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan this week, with police suspecting the cases to be of suicide. In Dehradun, a 23-year-old woman preparing for the NEET was found dead in her room. A handwritten note recovered from the spot purportedly suggested that the woman was depressed.
In Rajasthan’s Sikar district, a 22-year-old NEET aspirant was found dead ahead of his third attempt.
Read the full article at Hindustan Times →
India