Students protest outside MU’s Kalina campus over IIT-Madras student Fatima Latheef’s suicide and fee hike at Jawaharlal Nehru University, on Wednesday. (Express Photo: Pradip Das) Students protest outside MU’s Kalina campus over IIT-Madras student Fatima Latheef’s suicide and fee hike at Jawaharlal Nehru University, on Wednesday. (Express Photo: Pradip Das)

STUDENTS AND ACTIVISTS gathered outside Mumbai University’s (MU) Kalina campus on Wednesday to protest against the increasing number of suicides by students from the minority community and against the fee hike in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

On November 9, IIT-Madras student Fatima Latheef had committed suicide, blaming harassment by three professors in a message to her family. Students of IIT-Bombay had held a protest on Tuesday against Latheef’s suicide while accusing the institute administration of indulging in “casteist and Islamophobic behaviour” and of harbouring other discriminatory attitudes.

While the Wednesday protest in Mumbai, which followed multiple demonstrations across the country, was widely publicised, several students refrained from joining it fearing backlash from the university.

A second-year student pursuing her course in Women’s Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), said: “In 2017, several students got notices for protesting against a fee hike. We are afraid to come out in open to protest. Fee is hiked to target the marginalised community, to make education unaffordable for them.”

Another TISS student added: “Fatima’s suicide is an institutional murder. This is not the first time that a student from the marginalised community has committed suicide.” Amid heavy police security, students protesting outside MU condemned the government for delay in investigation over Latheef’s suicide.

Bhushan Hirbhagat, former assistant professor of SNDT College, said Latheef’s death was a result of “government ragging”.

“I have come across students in Mumbai who feel our admissions are not based on merit but on reservation. The cases of suicides are only rising, be it Rohit Vemula, Payal Tadvi or Fatima Latheef,” added Hirbhagat, who belongs to the Scheduled Castes category.

Shujauddin Siddiqui, a father of two who attended the protest, said he travelled from Mumbra to join the students. “I also have children. Although they have never faced any such issue, I believe a student’s issue is everyone’s issue,” he added.

Suvarna Salve, a third-year student of Siddharth College, said Dalit students were targetted the most. “It is believed we must be left to do only the dirty job,” she added.

The Mumbai University spokesperson refused to comment on the protest.

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