After battling for life for almost 55 hours, an undergraduate female student who set herself ablaze after her complaint of prolonged sexual harassment by a teacher was not addressed in a government-run autonomous college in Odisha’s Balasore district, succumbed to burn injuries during late-night hours on Monday.
”Despite the best efforts of a team of doctors, we could not save her. She breathed her last at 11.47 pm. She had suffered over 90 per cent burn injury, and there was multiple organ failure. The docs tried their best to maintain organ function artificially as long as possible. But they failed to revive her,” said an official of the AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, where she was admitted on Saturday.
Deeply traumatised over an assistant professor seeking sexual favour and threatening to sabotage her academic career, the undergraduate girl student at the Fakir Mohan College in Balasore had set herself on fire by pouring petrol on 12 July right in front of the principal’s chamber. The victim had brought the matter to the notice of the college authorities and the local police. She had tagged her ‘X’ post to CM, the union education minister, the State’s higher education minister besides director general of police, but to no avail.
The incident has sparked widespread protests across the State despite the State authorities swinging into a damage control drive in arresting the accused teacher and the college principal.
The shocking episode resulting in the death of the female student has triggered massive public and political outrage. The Opposition BJD demanded the resignation of the higher education minister, while the Congress held the state BJP government responsible and demanded a judicial probe into the incident.