Student falls to death, harassment alleged

In a tragic incident, a nursing student allegedly committed suicide on Monday morning by jumping from the fourth floor of the building of Rajasthan Hospital’s Singhi Institute of Nursing. The deceased student has been identified as Ankita Vegada, a first-year nursing student of General Nurse (Midwife) course.

The Sardarnagar police, who have registered a case of accidental death, said that, prima facie, the incident appeared to be a case of suicide. “The girl was scared of the hostel warden who had found a boy’s photograph in her room four days back,” said deputy commissioner of police, BR Pandor. “The warden may have threatened Ankita that she would inform her parents about the photograph, and perhaps this is why the girl committed suicide.”

Some other nursing students alleged that the warden, Kalpana Thakore, had been harassing them in the name of discipline. The incident occurred early in the morning on Monday at around 6 am when Ankita went to the roof of the building with two other hostel residents, Mayuri and Pooja, to switch on the solar water pump. While Ankita sat on the ledge, Mayuri and Pooja got to work to switch on the water pump.

While they were still trying to switch on the pump, Mayuri and Pooja suddenly heard a loud noise, and found that Ankita had fallen off the ledge and lay in a pool of blood on the ground at the bottom of the building. The assistant warden, Suja Chauhan, also came out of the building when she heard the loud noise. When she realised what had happened, she informed the principal of the institute, Bharti Shukla, about the incident. The injured girl was rushed to Rajasthan Hospital where she was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), but she died of her injuries after some time.

Sardarnagar police station police inspector (PI), RB Joshi, said they had registered a case of accidental death. “But details of the incident will be clear only after we receive the post-mortem report,” he said.

Meanwhile, the girl’s father, Ganpat Vegada, who is a driver at the state agriculture department, alleged that his daughter had died because of the mental torture inflicted on her by the institute authorities. He further alleged that when Ankita had come home during the Easter holidays, she had told them about being tortured by the warden and some senior students of the institute. “She had told us that the warden had tortured her physically too,” he alleged. Ganpat Vagada is a resident of Sector 21, Gandhinagar.

The principal, Bharti Shukla, said Ankita’s death was an accident. She said the girl had fallen off the roof when she had gone there to open the lock of the solar water pump. The principal further said that, every alternate day, two girls go to the top floor of the building to open water pump’s lock.