Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday urged students in the state to not kill themselves, hours after another National Entrance cum Eligibility Test aspirant died of suicide in Vellore district.
The death of Soundarya is the third incident of a NEET aspirant dying by suicide in four days in the state. The 17 year old is a resident of Thalayarampattu village of Katpadi locality in Vellore.
On Monday, a girl in Ariyalur district had reportedly killed herself fearing that she might not clear the exam.
On Sunday, another student in Salem district had killed himself hours before the NEET examination. He had failed to clear the test twice before.
The tragic deaths -also called as ‘institutional murders’ – were despite the fact that the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a Bill to scrap the entrance exam for admission to undergraduate medical degree courses in the state.
The sought to admit students to medical degree courses based on the marks they got in the Class 12 board examinations.
Medical admissions in Tamil Nadu used to be based on marks obtained by students in their Class 12 exams before the Union government in 2017 made NEET compulsory across all states and education boards.
“Your [students] lives are priceless,” hours after the report of the third suicide came to light, CM Stalin shared a video message making an appeal to the students.
“You are the future of this country. I request you not to take your own life and leave your parents in a state of suffering. All of you should study with the confidence that you can become doctors, and nothing can stop you from achieving your goal, ” he adds.
Stalin said that the Union government was “stone hearted” to not back down from its stand on the matter of holding the NEET examination.
Scrapping NEET was one of the key promises of Stalin’s party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, ahead of the Assembly elections held in April.
