Kurnool Medical College MBBS student commits suicide, father alleges ragging

Hyderabad: In yet another incident of suicide, an MBBS student at Kurnool medical college took his life by hanging himself from the ceiling. The father of the student has alleged that he had been ragged in the college, which drove him to take this extreme step.

The hanging body of Komma Harsha Praneeth Reddy (20), an MBBS student of Kurnool Medical College Andhra Pradesh was recovered by his friends when they broke open the door to his hostel room on Thursday night.

According to the police on the case, Komma who hailed from Aravind Nagar, Kadapa township, had returned to his room at around 11:30 pm after spending time with his friends in the hostel. At midnight when one of his friends came looking for a book from him and received no response despite persistent knocking, along with other friends broke open. To their dismay, they saw the boy hanging from the ceiling.

“They immediately brought him down and shifted him to the hospital attached to the medical college, where he was declared brought dead," the police said.

The students informed the college authorities and the police, simultaneously.

Ramanujulu Reddy, the victim’s father said his son was a bright student and had no other worries to want to end his life. He, however, alleged that the boy might have ended his life due to seniors ragging him in the college as it was his usual complaint to his father. The father of the boy suspected thrashings by seniors as some injury marks were visible on his body.

“My son was a sensitive person, but not timid. He called me and complained to me several times about ragging by seniors in the hostel and the college. I used to console him saying incidents of ragging are very common in professional colleges and advised him not to take them seriously but focus on his career. I also brought it to the notice of the college management a couple of times, but they did not take it seriously,” Ramanujulu Reddy told

HT.

“ I took it to the notice of the principal twice," the mourning father stated to the Bangalore Mirror.

The Kurnool Medical College, Principal, GS Ramprasad, however, came up with an outright denial of any such thing to have happened to lead to Komma’s death.

“We enforce the ban on ragging very strictly. We have not received any complaints of ragging from the juniors so far. We suspect that Praneeth might have been under pressure for facing the semester examinations to commence shortly,” the principal said.

The police have registered a case of suicide under suspicious circumstance and investigations are underway.