LSR teachers raise ₹2.5 lakh to help dead student’s family

The teachers of Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) have pooled in money to send around ₹2.5 lakh to the family of their students who had died earlier this month, parents said.

The 19-year-old undergraduate student had died by suicide at her home town in Telangana allegedly due to financial an academic stress. Her parents said her stress had worsened after the college asked around 150 students to vacate the hostel.

The notice to vacate -- it was later withdrawn as a one-time measure in view of Covid-19 pandemic -- was based on a policy introduced last year which limited hostel facilities to first-year undergraduate students from 2019 onwards to implement the reservations for students from other backward classes (OBC) and economically weaker section (EWS).

Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the family was in great financial distress as the student’s father, a motorcycle repairman, was out of work and so was her mother, a tailor. The deceased student was struggling to adapt to online education as she did not have any laptop and had to follow her classes on her phone, parents said.

Her mother told HT, “The college principal had called us, asking how much money we would needed to tide over our financial crisis. We don’t know much details but we have received around ₹2.5 lakh from the college so far. We will use this money to pay off our debts.”

Despite repeated requests, LSR principal Suman Sharma did not comment on the matter. However, officials from the college, requesting anonymity, told HT that till November 13, over ₹3 lakh was contributed towards the deceased student’s family fund and the amount was raised by over 80 faculty members.

The parents said they had mortgaged their house and pawned gold ornaments in order to support their elder daughter’s education at LSR, along with discontinuing the education of their 16-year-old younger daughter.

“As soon as the pandemic subsides and the schools reopen, we will try to get our younger daughter enrolled into a school. Right now, she is too traumatised by the death of her sister. Despite our hand-to-mouth existence, we tried to provide our eldest daughter with an education and yet could not save her,” she said.