17-year-old Anitha, who led battle against NEET exemption for Tamil Nadu in SC, commits suicide

17-year-old Anitha, a young Dalit girl who petitioned against NEET committed suicide at her home in Ariyalur, reported The News Minute.

The 17-year-old had led a legal battle against NEET 2017 implementation in Tamil Nadu and her death came as a shock to many. The Tamil Nadu government hadn’t revised their syllabus for NEET exams which made students of the state lose out against those from CBSE and other boards.

Anitha had taken the fight to the Supreme Court of India, demanding an exemption in the state.

HSC marksheet of #Anitha who killed herself as #NEET took away her MBBS dream -- Total1176/1200 Bio194 Phy200 Che199 Bio194 Mat200 pic.twitter.com/KMrbV4HDKU

— Aananth Daksnamurthy (@aananth95) September 1, 2017

On Friday, the 17-year-old killed herself after failing to get a medical seat. The daughter of a daily wage labourer (her mother passed away earlier), Anitha had scored 1176 out of 1200 in 12th Board Exams and was hell-bent on being a doctor.

If her board marks had been considered for medical entrance, she would’ve been made the cut as she had 196.75 out of 200 for medical.  However, her NEET scores didn’t make the cut. Even more tragically, she had secured a seat to study Aeronautical Engineering at the hallowed Madras Institute of Technology.

The Tamil Nadu health minister VIjayabaskar said he was saddened by the incident, telling students not to lose hope.

On August 22, the SC rejected a plea by Tamil Nadu students to exempt them from taking the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admissions to medical college this year.

The apex court on Tuesday said NEET will be the only basis for admissions.

The top court has asked the Tamil Nadu government to start counselling immediately and finish the process by September 4.

According to an NDTV report, the Centre told the court that it can't back Tamil Nadu's ordinance as it would encourage other states to ignore NEET.

Last year, in a call for common entrance test, NEET has replaced the All India Pre Medical Test and other tests conducted by private institution.

On August 16, the medical students from Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court seeking directive for the state government to start medical counselling soon.

This came after the NEET, which was made mandatory for admission in the MBBS and the BDS courses across India last year, got separate petitions filed at the Madras and Gujarat High Courts, where medical aspirants demanded cancellation of the NEET 2017 as the Gujarati and Tamil medium paper were allegedly tougher than the English and Hindi medium.

The medical aspirants in the case are being represented by Nalini Chidambaram before the apex court.

Earlier on May 24, the Madras High Court had stayed any proceedings on the NEET result.

Keeping the urgency of the result in mind and the starting of counselling sessions for successful candidates in mind, the apex court has stayed the Madras High Court order.

Nearly 12 lakh candidates across India had appeared for the NEET in 10 languages including English, Hindi and others.

With inputs from agencies