IIT student's mother hopeful of getting justice 2 years after son's death

There had been attempts to hush up the issue from the very beginning, she said.Expressing hope that her family will get justice now, Rehana Ahmed said she had written to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee demanding that her sons death be probed and the perpetrators punished but none of them responded.

The mother of IIT Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed, whose decomposed body was found in the hostel around two years ago, on Saturday said she is hopeful of getting justice after a court-appointed forensic expert said the youth from Assam ''might have been hit by an object and shot at''. Wondering how someone can carry a firearm inside a high-security zone like IIT Kharagpur, Rehana Ahmed asserted that his son's death was the result of a "conspiracy''.

''We have all along been saying that my son was murdered in cold blood. Tell me how can a student carry guns or knives on the campus in a high-security zone like IIT Kharagpur? There had been attempts to hush up the issue from the very beginning,'' she said.

Expressing hope that her family will get justice now, Rehana Ahmed said she had written to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee demanding that her son's death be probed and the perpetrators punished but none of them responded. "If truth comes out, it will also be a trendsetter," Rehana Ahmed said.

She also wondered why so many students died mysteriously in higher educational institutions in the country.

"Even if you consider cases of suicide, why aren't those thoroughly probed? What steps do the authorities of higher educational institutions take to address the safety issues of hostel students. They get admitted (to these institutions) in search of a bright career, not to end up in coffins,'' she said.

A senior official of IIT Kharagpur rejected the allegation of hushing up Faizan's death, stating that the authorities have extended all assistance to the investigation. "Every student is like our child. We also want the truth to be unravelled. The guilty should be punished. Let the court pronounce its verdict. There should not be any media trial,'' the official said.

Forensic expert Dr A K Gupta, who submitted his findings to the Calcutta High Court, said there was a sign of a wound under the ear near the jaw of the deceased student, which indicates the use of a weapon and he might have been hit and shot at.

The high court, which had ordered exhumation and the second post-mortem of the body of the IIT student, said it was surprised that the first autopsy missed the injury marks on the back of his head.

The student's body was found in his hostel room on October 14, 2022.

The matter is likely to be taken up for hearing before the court next week, petitioner Salim Ahmed's lawyer Aniruddha Mitra said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)