Following Delhi’s Amity Law School, IP University, student Sushant Rohilla having hanged himself at his home on 10 August, as reported by the Hindustan Times at the time, has gone viral after a social media campaign by his friends and family, with several mainstream websites picking up the story.
The HT had reported police officials saying:
In his suicide note, he said he was ashamed of not being a good son, a good brother, and a good friend. “It is unclear why he took the extreme step. He wrote he was a failure and did not wish to live,” a senior police officer said.
Rohilla’s father is Jagdish Kumar, a joint secretary in the Rajya Sabha, newspapers had reported.
But several of his friends and family members have claimed that Rohilla had allegedly killed himself after having been harassed for his lack of attendance and threatened with having to re-take a year, after not having been able to fulfil the college’s attendance requirement for after a foot injury.
His friends blamed the college’s inflexible attendance policies and insensitive way of the administration for dealing with his case, in messages and posts on social networks, with protests having taken place outside of Amity’s campus today.
Third-year student Rohilla had apparently written an email to Amity University founder and chairman Dr Ashok K Chauhan on 11 May, just before his exam, saying he “might not mentally survive” debarment and having to repeat the year.
In response to a request for comment made by us, an Amity spokesperson has sent the following statement by email:
All students of Amity Law School, Delhi and the management as well as the whole Amity fraternity are extremely sad on the loss of our dear student Sushant Rohilla. It is a great loss to Amity Law school and the Amity fraternity as a whole.
Amity Law School, Delhi, is affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh IP University, Delhi.
The students were detained as per the decision of Guru Gobind Singh IP University and in that Amity Law School itself had absolutely no role.
The Law school officials had gone to meet the bereaved parents and pay condolence. The parents of the deceased have expressed that there is no fault of Amity Law School Delhi in this tragic incident .
We have responded with a number of further clarifications from Amity, notably on whether Amity Law School had any discretion whatsoever in the matter, whether they had communicated with Sushant Rohilla and whether they had ever offered him counselling or advice to deal with his attendance issues.
Update 17:04: University’s further response
In response to our queries, an Amity spokesperson has added by phone that Rohilla had 43 per cent attendance in the last year, whereas the official attendance requirement of IP University, which conducts the exam, was 75 per cent.
Two emails had been sent to his father about Rohilla’s insufficient attendance before the university examinations were to take place in May of this year, added the spokesperson.
In response to our question, the spokesperson also added that Amity Law School had a “student counselling centre” with trained counsellors, who are available to any students to discuss personal or other issues.
We have reached out to Rohilla’s uncle, Dinesh Rohilla, on Amity’s statement.
Relative claims abetment to suicide
Dinesh Rohilla is an advocate who appeared to have been standing for election as secretary to the Delhi Bar Association in June, and had posted on 14 August on Facebook alleging that:
Abetment of Suicide: A callous & arbitrary system of Amity University caused the death of my nephew Late Sushant Rohilla, a brilliant and extremely meritorious law student of Amity on a minor issue of shortage of attendance. It is quite evident from the email sent by him to the concerned & responsible person of Amity.
He had requested not to debar him on account of shortage of attendance on several grounds including medical ground as well. He also gave coherent & alarming signals, if his request is not conceded or considered,
1. he may not mentally survive,
2. It will hamper his life to an unimaginable extent
3. It will destroy his life
4. It is his last hope.
But it is an utter shock, a renowned university didn't give any attention towards the last request of a vulnerable student who was not only a outstanding student but also he was an asset for the Amity university.
Having no hope in life and under compelling circumstances & situations, he had taken his life. This is my wake up call for all students of Amity University to share this maximum so that in future, Amity will not dare to take life of other students on such minor issue of attendance as discussed.
Sacrifice of life of Sushant value of others.
I am reproducing the entire contents of email also. Thanks. With regards.
A few days earlier, he had posted on Facebook:
Being a Lawyer & Maternal Uncle of Sushant Rohilla, I want to bring in the kind notice of all. Today in cut throat competition, lives of children have become miserable in the context of educational system . The unfortunate incident is one of the consequences arising out of the same. Students have raised their voices since, Sushant lost his life as he was not promoted on account of shortage of attendance.
The message has become viral sent by students:
Sushant Rohilla, a 4th year student of Amity Law school Delhi, after being harassed by college authorities for attendance and subsequent year detention, committed suicide on 10th August by hanging himself. He was an extremely meritorious student and actively took part in all college activities but was constantly pressurized as a result of extremely stringent and inflexible attendance norms of the college and an arbitrary method of detaining students from taking university exams. Despite all this, the insensitivity shown on the part of college authorities and a failure to even acknowledge the tragic death of a student is extremely appalling. Many students of this law school have been previously detained and forced to repeat year after year when they fail to abide by the mandatory 75% attendance criteria, even on medical grounds and the college lacks any redressal mechanism for such cases. Please share this as much as you can. A matter like this calls for attention.
A number of tweets by Twitter user Teerth Waraich went viral yesterday:
I will start a series of tweets, explaining a recent tragedy that has happened regarding my friend and my college. I beg for support
Sushant Rohilla, a bright 3rd year student in my college, Amity Law School, IP University, committed suicide by hanging himself.
The reason behind this extreme step was because the college debarred him from giving his exams due to his unfullfilment of attendance
The reason why he missed college was because he had suffered a foot injury, which made him unable to go to college.
But his pleas fell on deaf ears. You can see my friend, Sushant, begging for another chance, they didn't even reply.
He did everything for our college. He participated in competitions and won them, he organized events out of his own pocket.
He was also the head of the Debating society. He taught me everything there is to know about debating. Mentored me, tutored me.
My college (Amity Law School, IP University) killed him. Took a child away from his parents, made sure that his sister can't tie him a Rakhi
Our college has a 75% attendance norm but it is completely arbitrary. They forgave attendance for Miss India contestant but killed my friend
Responding to lawyer Dushyant K Mahant’s offer of legal assistantce, he responded:
I believe his family has already hired a lawyer and are filing at least two civil cases. Thank you for your kind offer.
Are there larger issues of institutional apathy?
Delhi advocate (and Amity graduate) Apar Gupta tweeted in reaction to the story, raising arguably more endemic issues of “insensitivity and institutional apathy”:
Many years ago, I attended Amity Law School. It seems nothing has changed. It still reeks of insensitivity & institutional apathy.
In my 4th year of law school I did something stupid. Opened up a blog with two other friends. Was called, "mutiny in amity". I was stupid.
For this, we were called to Amity's Def. Col. office under the pretext of sponsorship for an international moot. I was part of the team.
It was one of the first international moots we had qualified for. We were proud and happy. We sat in a conference room expecting good news.
A senior founder of the institution entered. He showed us pictures on the blog which were ours. And asked us who ran it. I answered plainly.
Immediately cellphones were "confiscated". It is 2005/6. Were analog phones for calls. Then locked in the room. Told we would be restigated.
A teammate and a co-author after 2 hours of being locked started crying and said he did not know what he would do. He was scared.
Hours of being locked our parents figured something was wrong. Called a PCR & registered a complaint for kidnapping. Compromises were made.
Blog had to be deleted. But I kept printouts from, "http://mutinyinamity.blogspot.com ". For weeks we were scared. No one to talk in the administration
We did not have a faculty supervisor, no residential boarding hence no warden, no student council as unions are banned in IP University.
Not saying I am not at fault here. I may fully be. But I do think it is a college's responsibility to have sensitivity with young kids.
The exact words of my co-author were, "if i am thrown out of college, my life will be destroyed". He was stronger than this. Thankfully.
Some months later in another incident, his mother told us, "You guys have exercised all your fundamental rights in college itself". /end
Not kicking Amity when it is down. Spoke about this 2 years ago at Converge. Hope things change with time. We need more empathy in teaching.
Point of this thread is reaching for empathy in higher education. Students need sensitivity & support. Old models of authority do not work.
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The real reason for this sad incident is that the kid was under a lot of pressure after being debarred. The society and, in most cases, the family of students are responsible making the kid feel his life has come to an end and that there's no coming back from this.
If college was to make an exception to this, it would have been a gross injustice to several others who have been debarred earlier for the same reason.
Lastly, if college had allowed Sushant's plean then headlines would have read as: Examination Rules were bent because Sushant’s father, Jagdish Kumar, is a joint secretary in Rajya Sabha.
I see no fault of college. The Adult was at a mistake and paid the price with his life.
You should know that he was the only person who was debarred and he had medical reasons for not attending the college. Further, he was a brilliant mooter and had taken part in many co-curricular activities, representing the "college".
Having been a part of the college, I can assure you that the implementation of the rules was highly arbitrary.
I will not judge whether his conduct was right or wrong but I can completely believe that he was un-necessarily harassed. If you read the versions presented by both the current students as well as the alumni, you will know what they go through
.
Also, the University did release the Admit Card. It was stopped by the de-facto head of the College. So, to answer your question, the University harassed no one. The College did. Further, check the BCI rules, they also make exceptions on the attendance requirement.
Amityyou f wart, did you even read the entire article? He clearly mentions that the entire fiasco of attendance is arbitrary because 1) it gives unlimited power to the faculty member to give or withdraw attendance irrespective of whether the student was in class or not. 2) medical conditions are not considered while computing attendance. So say if you were a student of this law school, and I shot a bullet up your ***, you wouldn't be able to write your exams or suffer an year back.Nothing can undo the act the one (I dare say) coward soul took selfishly without even bothering to think about those who trusted and believed in him.
Please do not blame others for a selfish act of cowardice. There are those who fall, get up and keep walking to overcome their shortcomings and there are those who 'give in'. Fact of the matter is this is what differentiates between winners and losers. As much as I may sound stoic and insensitive thats a fact of life.
An attendance rule is about the most objective rule any university can set and 75% is not a steep requirement. For a daily subject over 3 months that's missing more than 45 out of 60 classes which is ridiculous.
[...] RIP to him but the college has done nothing to deserve a bad name. I can well imagine the kind of pressure Amity might have faced from well-connected kids [...] and personally my opinion of Amity has gone up after reading this.
1) I quit Amity as well, partly because of this issue. We had people from rich backgrounds sitting for exams with literally no attendance. Honest kids were debarred for falling sick, spending a couple of days in goa after coming in the top 3 of a moot, not cosying up to professors to give them free attendance etc.
I was not a regular and deserved to be barred, but it was ridiculous how at times I would be allowed to sit, while on other occasions I wouldn't be.
2) I have first hand heard talks about paid posts in Shiksha.com and other such portals. What weight do you give to these comments?
3) On multiple occasions there have been instances of students being badly beaten up by other students at the Yasho Bhawan campus. On 3 occasions that I witnessed the law school shut up the students from calling the cops with a threat of being kicked out, even to the ones who were aggrieved. The police never came. On two occasions students were in the hospital. Lost tooths, broke bones - but the college reputation was on the line - thus no police.
The point is not about denying this one student. The point is over a decade of being partial and bending rules as per their own convenience. There is no benefit of doubt that can be given to them.
When you are so used to doing things in a wrong manner - it is incidents like this that either wake you up, or force to continue the way you are. I hope this wakes them up.
Far too many have suffered. This was an unfortunate result, but not one unexpected. They can not say that they were not warned over the years. After numerous kids who raised issues, cried, broke down - they should have learned.
It is not about right or wrong here about the attendance rule - it is about the manner in which it has been implemented all the way from the start of the college.
Yes the college could have considered this poor kid's request favorably. But come on, you are moaning about how u were not allowed to attend exams because you were partying in goa? and someone else could because they were rich? Grow up!
Kian - I would sincerely request you to shut down this thread and give due respect to the kid.
Firstly, it is not Amity University. It is Amity Delhi and is affiliated to IP University, ranked 11th in the country.
Rules are rules, agreed. But I think its necessary for you to know that rule was also that extra curriculars will be given attendance. Infact, any event or activity done for the good of college, will be given attendance.
It would amuse you to know that this very rule was not followed by the authority in college. This rule was arbitrarily applied as per the whims and fancies of this one professor. I don't want to justify the act of suicide but imagine a situation where you are made (read as compelled) to work your ass off for the college and then when it is the turn of the college to compensate for the loss in attendance, they make statements like 'your performance/ contribution was not up to the mark'!
This guy fought for what he deserved and then ultimately gave up. Every individual is different. Their patience, their threshold to tolerate is different. So let us not judge and term this as an act of 'cowardice' for god sake. Let his soul rest in peace.
Everywhere, students do face issues with the administration. We did as well. There was times when the student body had to go against the vice chancellor and the registrar for their high-handed approach. NLSIU has set a precedent (may not be in similar terms but nonetheless). If someone chooses to take ones own life without even considering what his/her parents kin will go through without him. If he fails to understand the pain/sacrifices his parents made to rear him to this age, that terms him 'selfish'. The will to fight back even when you lose and fall is the true test of a strong character. Lack of it makes you a coward, because you cannot accept and move on. I have lost a dear friend in a similar way and I cannot help but say again, no act can justify a suicide.
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