JU student death: Parents meet senior police officers at Kolkata police headquarters

KOLKATA: Alleging that their daughter was murdered, parents of the Jadavpur University English Literature student, who was found unconscious in a pond inside the campus on the night of September 11 and declared dead at a nearby hospital, met Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma and other officers at Lalbazar on Monday, an officer said.

Her parents had said on Sunday that they would lodge a police complaint claiming foul play in their daughter’s death. "The parents reached Kolkata Police headquarters, Lalbazar, this morning. They met police commissioner Manoj Verma and other senior police officers and consulted them regarding their next step," an official said.

Sources in the Kolkata Police said Verma listened to them and assured a quick investigation into the matter. Meanwhile, investigators questioned three of the deceased student Anamika Mandal’s friends in connection with the case. On Sunday, four other friends were also questioned.

"They are Anamika’s close friends. Among them is a couple who spotted her floating in the pond, while others took her to a hospital after fishing out her body," the officer said. It was learnt that police were trying to piece together the sequence of events leading up to September 11 night. Post-mortem examination conducted on the girl indicated "drowning" as the primary cause of the girl's death.

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I wonder whether Anamika was deliberately pushed, says girl's father

Following the incident, police had registered a suo motu case and initiated an investigation. Talking to reporters on Sunday after performing Anamika’s last rites, her father Arnab Mandal said he was puzzled why his daughter, who didn’t know how to swim, would go to the edge of the waterbody inside the campus around 10 pm.

Mandal said a professor handed him her mobile phone and hair clip, but could not identify the student who collected the items from the pondside and deposited them with him. "Her glasses were, however, not found," Mondal noted. Expressing suspicion, he said, "I wonder whether Anamika was deliberately pushed into the water by someone. My daughter did not consume alcohol. If she really did that night, someone conspired against her. I want police to question her friends present at the site on that fateful night."

Informing his decision to lodge a police complaint, he said, "Initially, we had said that we don't suspect anyone for her death, but certain questions haunted our minds afterwards. We want the truth to come out."

Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women has taken suo motu cognisance of the incident and wrote to Kolkata Police commissioner for a thorough investigation. NCW chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar, in a letter to the commissioner, asked for an action-taken report within three days.