BENGALURU, 18 MAY 

Around 100 students of the Electronics City campus of PES University protested at Freedom Park here on Saturday demanding justice over the deaths of their four collegemates in nine months.

On Thursday, a 21-year-old student jumped to death from the fourth floor as he was denied entry to his semester exam. 

Requesting anonymity, a student protester from the university told Salar News, “I have witnessed the college authority giving the extra money to the helpers at the college to hush up the case. I overheard the conversation of the helpers saying, ‘A guy jumped from the fourth floor and nobody is there to clean the mess.’ This shows how the college treated the lives of students.” 

Dushyant Dubey, an activist popularly known as St Brospeh who led the protest at Freedom Park, said, “Karnataka Educational Act, 1983, lacks provisions to address students’ mental health issues and manhandling by educational institutions. We intend to push for an amendment and will request our Higher Education Minister to take action. We aim to criminalise the harassment of students by educational authorities.” 

The protesters demanded that Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar take immediate action against the institute. When Salar News reached out to Sudhakar, he was not available for comment. 

On Friday, All India Students Association issued a statement condemning the disregard by PES University regarding the mental health of its students. 

Four students of the Electronics City campus of PES University committed suicide in the last 9 months, all of them allegedly due to manhandling by exam invigilators.

On 14 March, a BTech student jumped to death as he was allegedly not allowed to take an examination for arriving late. He was told he would get a backlog and couldn't sit for placements. A 19-year-old BBA student died after jumping from the 6th floor of the campus on 31 January. In July 2023, a 19-year-old student jumped to death from the fourth floor of the campus building. 

In a statement, PES University said, "The university is not responsible for the students’ death and the university is cooperating with the investigating authorities by providing all access, information, and videos to all the students who died at our campus.”  -Salar News