Another NEET aspirant commits suicide in TN

Chennai, Sep 15 (IANS) A National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) aspirant, Soundharya. T was found dead at her house in Katpadi in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday. She had written the NEET on Sunday and told her friends that she had not performed well in the exam.

The police suspect that she took her life as she had not done well in the NEET examination. However, no suicide note has been recovered.

The death of Soundharya is the third suicide in the state due to pressure of the NEET exam after a 19-year-old student Dhanush was allegedly found hanging at his residence on Sunday morning, a few hours before the examination.

On Monday evening Kanimozhi, daughter of an advocate couple at Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu, had taken her life after she feared that she had not fared well in the NEET.

Soundharya, who had topped her local government school in classes 10 and 12 was a bright student, according to her teachers and friends. However, she had told her classmates that the NEET exam which she wrote on Sunday was tough and that she expected not clearing the exam.

Police said that her parents, S. Tirunavakkarasu and T. Rukmani with whom she was living, were daily wage earners. They had left their home at Kathalapattu village near Katpadi in Vellore early on Wednesday morning.

Soundharya was alone at home after her parents left and when the neighbours called her at 10.30 a.m. she did not respond so they called the police and her parents. The police broke open the door of the house and found her body inside. The police have registered a case of unnatural death under Section 174.

The DMK government has been urging that the NEET exam be scrapped in the state and had pointed out that students from poor backgrounds were not able to crack the exam.

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin while moving a resolution in the Tamil Nadu Assembly against the NEET exam had said the students living in villages are not able to crack the examination as they were not getting proper training and the state did not want that.

The anti-NEET bill was passed unanimously in the House with the BJP legislators staging a walking out.