About three weeks after the death of Fathima Latheef, a first-year postgraduate student of IIT Madras who had committed suicide in the premises of the institute on November 9th, 2019, the Kerala Unit of Yuva Janathadal has approached the Madras High court on Friday to seek the independent CBI probe into the deaths of about 14 students who had committed suicide in IIT Madras premises since 2006.

The National President of the party has said that the institute has reported with 14 suicides since 2006 - five from Andhra Pradesh, three from Kerala, two from Tamil Nadu, two from Uttar Pradesh, one each from Puducherry and Jharkhand have hanged themselves to the death in the past thirteen years after they had allegedly gone through the discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, and language. He stated that despite the series of uncertainty, the management of the institution has been failing to implement stable and concrete steps to derive the reasons behind the suicides and to prevent it.

By pointing out the recent death of Fathima Latheef, who committed suicide after she was purportedly harassed and discriminated by the faculty members of her department, he added that the state government and the local police department have repeatedly failed to conduct an inquiry to expose the reasons behind the mysterious deaths.

Through his petition, he sought the orders from the High court to initiate an independent CBI probe into the deaths of 14 students. It has been reported that the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) will likely be taken for hearing on Monday.

On November 9th, Fathima Latheef, a native of Kerala who was pursuing her first-year postgraduate course in Humanities and Social Services had allegedly committed suicide in the premises of the institute and while it was initially told that she could have hanged herself by citing low marks in the examinations, her suicide note that was in her mobile phone had revealed that she could have been harassed by her department and by the professors. After visiting the premises and reviewing the investigations, the Chennai city police commissioner had transferred the probe to the Central Crime Branch.