Content Warning: The following article includes mention of suicide

A student of the Dr. Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University in Lucknow allegedly killed herself by hanging, following which her fellow students alleged that she was harassed by some teachers and demanded action against varsity officials.

Anjali Yadav, a student of B.Ed Special Education (Hearing Impairment), was found hanging from the ceiling of her hostel room on Saturday.

Soon after her death, university students began a protest and it continued till Sunday. The protesters alleged that Yadav was harassed by some teachers and demanded a special investigation into the matter and action against the vice chancellor, registrar and proctor of the university.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) of Kakori Ashutosh Kumar said, “The body was sent for postmortem and the matter is being investigated.”

The girl’s family has not submitted any complaint regarding the incident to the police, Kumar added.

University Registrar Amit Kumar Singh said, “The incident is very unfortunate and we have formed an internal committee to investigate the matter.”

On the student protest, he said, “Only a few students are protesting outside the gate of the university. We are in touch with them. The protest will end soon.”

According to the recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, suicide cases have been on the rise. In 2021 alone, 1,65,033 suicides were reported. In comparison, 1,53,052 and 1,39,123 suicides were reported in 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Student suicides also saw an increase of 4.5 per cent in 2021, according to the NCRB report. Student suicides have been steadily increasing in the last five y