Blackmail led to suicide

The B.Tech student who committed suicide at Ghaziabad was apparently sexually harassed and blackmailed by a senior student, police said.

The B.Tech student who committed suicide at Ghaziabad was apparently sexually harassed and blackmailed by a senior student, police said.

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Sarika Agrihar (23), a fourth-year electronics and communication engineering student at Indraprastha Engineering College (IPEC), hanged herself from the ceiling fan in her hostel room (No. 15) on Wednesday evening.

Initial investigations revealed her harassment at the hands of the former student who frequented the campus regularly.

“In her suicide note, she held Abhishek Pushkar, a former student of the college, responsible for her death. Pushkar apparently used a hidden camera to film her bathing, the suicide note suggests. It is a case of sexual harassment and blackmail,” said SP (City) Anant Dev.

College authorities denied the allegations and said there was no possibility of an outsider entering the campus.

“The girl and her family never gave us a written complaint about the problems,” said Prof. R.P. Saxena, IPEC director. “She complained about the food and water but never told us about the harassment,” said Suman Verma, hostel warden.

Agrihar’s family arrived from Kanpur for the post-mortem on Thursday said she had mentioned names of some students, including a girl, for troubling her. She had even requested her family to come and see her immediately.

“She told us the names of Shanker, Vikas and Preeti Gujral as the ones troubling her. Abhishek Pushkar is responsible for her death and should be hanged. There was a definite entry of outsider inside the college campus,” said Meenakshi, her younger sister.

“She had been calling us for the past 10-12 days and indicated that something would happen to her if the family did not come and meet her. She also told me to bring a new lock for her room as someone was entering it by using a duplicate key. She had complained to the management several times but they ignored her,” alleged her maternal uncle Pankaj Agrihar, whom she had called before taking her life.

Police have lodged a case under Section 306 of the IPC at Link Road police station and formed two teams to arrest the accused and others for further investigations. Pushkar is reportedly the son of a retired agricultural university professor at Kanpur.