MLC Ugrappa Takes District Administration to Task in Kavya Suicide Case
Mangaluru: The chairperson of the Expert Committee on Preventing Sexual Violence against Women and Children MLC V S Ugrappa, and his team visited Alva’s Education Foundation at Moodbidri to study the recent unnatural death of Badminton Player Kavya on August 1.
After visiting Alva’s Education Foundation, Ugrappa held an emergency meeting with the district administration where he took the officers to task for their lapses in monitoring educational institutions.
MLC Ugrappa said, “Today I have visited Alva’s Education Foundation at Moodbidri. Badminton Player Kavya’s death was unnatural and also an unfortunate incident and the police are investigating it. But when I visited Moodbidri I got some shocking information. According to the information, Kavya’s death is unnatural and the police are investigating the case. The victim’s father has filed two complaints and other information available on the campus. First of all, we cannot call it as a hostel because it is on the fifth floor. I do not know whether the district administration is aware of it. After seeing the Institution I wanted to know whether it is a residential school or regular school since there are certain rules for residential and regular schools. For government schools and hostel there are certain regulations in the law but in Alva’s there are 26000 students pursuing education. Dr Mohan Alva appeared before our committee and gave the information that 6000 teaching and non-teaching staff are work there. When I asked whether it is a residential or regular school, Dr Mohan Alva said, “It is a residential School and we have taken the permission. I would like to ask the DC, according to him which category does Alva’s School belong and are there any regulations for the School. The Management also said that unnatural deaths had taken place in the School. When there is no control over the students such incident occur.”
Ugrappa further said, “Dr Mohan said that nearly 4000 students who get free education under various quota’s but the rest 22000 students pay the fees.” Is there a control over the transactions in the school? For unnatural death, negligence of the management is the cause. There is no lift for 5 floors and students should climb the stairs to go to the hostel room. If the administration would have appointed one warden to each floor and had monitored their activities we would not have had to face such a situation. I even heard that parents of students also come and stay in the hostel and they had left a Saree which Kavya used to hang herself. When I questioned the girls who had lowered the body, they said that since the legs were touching the floor and thought that she is alive and lowered the body. Normally the police, doctor and lawyers take the opinion of Dr Modi and Dr Narayan Reddy in such hanging cases. Normally in suicide cases, the victim passes urine, motion, biting tongue etc. But when we asked the students they did not notice the above in Kavya. Then why was the body was lowered? Why were the parents not allowed to see the body of Kavya? The district administration should shed light on these issues”.
Responding to Ugrappa, DC Jagadeesha said, “I do not know whether it is a residential school or regular school. For permission related to Residential school or Regular School, I had asked the DDPI and he said that the education department is giving permission for the schools but to run the hostel there are no specific guidelines. Most of the private Institutions are residential and students stay there. If they did not take permission for the residential school we will take action against the Institution. In any building if there are more than 3 floors, having a lift is mandatory. The Urban Local Body should not give the completion certificate to any building without a lift. We will take action against the Urban Local Body members who gave the completion certificate and we will also take action against the contractor. We do not know about the regulating of fees since it does not come under the District administration. If the Education department gives specific information about the fees structure we can take action. In Maintaining cleanliness in the hostel, the Education department should have taken action. We do not know of any guidelines to be followed in the hostels. In government Schools and Hostels we follow the guidelines, if we get the directions we will visit private Hostels.”
The Vishakha Guidelines were a set of procedural guidelines for use in India in cases of sexual harassment. They were promulgated by the Indian Supreme Court in 1997 and were superseded in 2013. As per law, there should be an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) formed at every branch of the company in the country, where there are more than 10 employees. The District Officer is required to constitute a Local Complaints Committee in each district, and if required at the block level.”
Committee members Vinisha, Prabha, Dr Leela Sampige, Jyothi, K S Vimala, Dr Vasundhara Bhupati, DC Dr Jagadeesha, Police Commissioner T R Suresh, SP Sudheer Reddy, DCP Law and Order Shantharaju, DCP Crime and Traffic Hanumantharaya and others were also present.