Updated: September 13, 2020 7:59:25 am
According to the authorities, a 19-year-old woman hanged herself in Madurai. (Representative image)
Three NEET applicants in Tamil Nadu he allegedly committed suicide on Saturday, a day before they were to report for the medical entrance examination. Many of the state’s political leaders expressed regret over the deaths and criticized the Center for going ahead with the examination.
According to the authorities, a 19-year-old woman hanged herself in Madurai.
Later in the evening, PTI reported that two male applicants, aged between 19 and 21, allegedly died by suicide in Dharmapuri and Namakkal districts.
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According to a police officer handling the Madurai case, it was the exam candidate’s second attempt and she had been trying to attend training classes.
In a note to her parents, M Jothisri Durga said that she was looking forward to the exam. “She wrote that she would disappoint her family members and others if she did not get a medical seat,” the officer said, adding that Jothisri also sent a voice note to his father before hanging himself.
The demand for exemption is not new
Tamil Nadu has been demanding the NEET exemption for years. After the Center categorically declared that it would be impossible to do without a single state, the state had introduced two bills: the Tamil Nadu MBBS and BDS Courses Admission Bill, 2017, and the Tamil Nadu Admission to Courses. Graduate Studies in Medicine and Dentistry, which were retained by the president in September 2017.
Police told PTI that M Adithya from Dharmapuri district and 21-year-old Motilal from Tiruchengode in Namakkal also died by hanging. Motilal had appeared for NEET twice, while Adithya had appeared once before.
Earlier this week, another 19-year-old NEET aspirant died by suicide in Ariyalur. This year’s exam attempt would have been the third.
Read in Malayalam here.
In August, the state Health Minister, C Vijayabaskar, had written to the central government demanding that the exam be canceled. He had cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason and asked the center to allow medical admissions based on the grades of Class 12 students.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had declined to consider a series of pleas seeking postponement or cancellation of NEET. A bank headed by Judge Ashok Bhushan had said that authorities will take all necessary steps to take the NEET undergraduate exam.
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All parties in the state, across the political divide, expressed their condolences and outrage at NEET, following the news of Jothisri’s death. The opposition, meanwhile, trained its weapons on the national level exam,
Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami tweeted: “It is distressing to see the students, the hope for the future, take such steps.”
Senior Vice Minister O Panneerselvam stated: “Students must learn to face any situation with guts and parents must help them in this.” The leader of the Opposition and head of the DMK, Stalin, expressed shock at the death, but said that committing suicide was not the solution. “We can realize from the death of Anitha (an aspiring doctor who died by suicide in 2017) to Jothisri Durga that NEET is seriously affecting students,” he tweeted. “I repeat, suicide is not a solution; NEET is not an exam at all. #BanNeet_SaveTNStudents “.
The DMK Youth Wing secretary and Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi visited the family and provided 5 lakh rupee assistance.
PMK deputy Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, whose party is part of the NDA, mourned the death of the student and expressed his condolences to her family. “#SayNoToNEET #BanNEET,” the PMK Youth Wing leader tweeted.
Meanwhile, Puducherry’s chief minister, V Narayanasamy, said on Saturday that the central government was playing with the lives of young people. In a virtual press conference, he said that UT people would teach the BJP a lesson in the upcoming Assembly elections, which will be held in 2021.
-With PTI inputs
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