Students at Chennai’s Sathyabama University went on a violent rampage, burning university property, after a fellow batch mate committed suicide in her hostel.

Pramod Madhav | Edited by Dev Goswami

The Sathyabama University campus in Chennai tonight saw violence and arson after students, angry over the suicide of a batch mate, went on rampage and set fire to university property.

First reports of the violence came in at around 8.30 pm tonight. According to early reports, the violence and unrest were sparked by the suicide of Ragamoulika, a first year BSc Computer Science student who hung herself to death inside her hostel.

The students claimed Ragamoulika had been acutely insulted by university staff and that this was the reason she took the drastic step of ending her life. A member of the university management, however, said Ragamoulika was caught cheating during exams and was simply issued a warning over the act.

Ragamoulika was from Andhra Pradesh and initial reports of the violence indicated that the protesting students were from the same state.

This is the second controversial suicide of a student in Chennai in recent past. On October 26, Prakash, a fourth year student at a government-run arts college in Chennai, committed suicide.

Fellow students, who observed a sit-in protest to demand justice, claimed Prakash killed himself after being unable to deal with the pressure put on him by his head of department.