District Revenue Officer S.Natarajan on Thursday began an inquiry into the circumstances/causes that led to the death of four engineering students of Annamalai University, Chidambaram, recently.
In the inquiry session held at the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer at Chidambaram near here, about 50 persons, including security guards of the university, teaching and non-teaching staff, general public, representatives of a political party and autorickshaw drivers, deposed before the Enquiry Officer. Before starting the procedures, the DRO told The Hindu that after questioning those who had volunteered to share the information, he would subsequently get the versions from the police, doctors of Rajah Muthiah Medical College Hospital, Government Hospital doctors who conducted the post-mortem and the university authorities.
He would then contact Superintendent of Police (Cuddalore) Ashwin Kotnis, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Villupuram Range) E.Ma.Masanamuthu and vice-chancellor M.Ramanathan to record their statements.
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Mr. Natarajan hoped to complete the probe and submit a report to the government by month-end. The inquiry got off with the quizzing of security guards posted at the vice-chancellor's residence on the university campus.
The guards told the Enquiry Officer that after the death of Gautam Kumar, a second-year engineering student, in a road accident on February 28 on S.P.Koil Street in Chidambaram, agitating students gathered in strength in front of the vice-chancellor's resident around midnight and turned vociferous to meet him. They were asked to come in the morning and instead of going to their rooms (rented outside the campus) they trooped towards Rajah Muthiah Medical College Hospital and went on the rampage.
When the police arrived, they scattered in various directions and scurried for cover. Of those who got into the Palaman canal to escape, Sumit Kumar, Ranjan Kumar and Mohammad Sarfraz Rab were said to have drowned. The bodies of the last two were fished out on March 2. All the deceased students were studying second year engineering courses; while two of them were from Bihar other two were from Jharkhand.
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