MUMBAI, JAN 18: In a delayed action, the crime branch has set up a four-member inquiry committee to probe the controversial suicide of Indu Anto, a student of Sophia College.The committee has been formed under the chairmanship of Dr G V Uppe, state police surgeon. Its other members include Dr R G Bhusale, professor and head of forensic department, JJ Hospital, Dr Shubhangi Parkar, professor and head of psychiatry department, KEM Hospital and Dr Pritam Phatnani, professor and head of forensic department, Sion Hospital.Dr Uppe said all relevant documents and papers of the case were received last week, and a meeting of all committee members will be held soon.Indu Anto, a Sophia College student committed suicide inside the college premises on August 4, 1998, barely three weeks after taking admission as a hostelite. Her father, C L Anto, had alleged the girl had been badly ragged by several students, and this had forced her to commit suicide by jumping from the third-floor terrace of the collegebuilding.However, Gamdevi police had been unable to find any evidence which showed the girl had been ragged by her seniors, and concluded it was her depressed state of mind that drove her to suicide.At the same time, though, police were unable to explain injuries that were seen on and around the private parts of the girl. The injuries had been sustained about three to five days before the suicide. These couldn't have been self-inflicted, according to forensic experts, and therefore indicated she could have been exposed to some form of sexual harassment, leading her to commit suicide. There were also injuries on her waist and elbows, which are not likely to happen when a person is committing suicide of his own free will, sources said.Though the cause of death was given as shock and haemmorrage due to head injury and multiple injuries, it was these ante-mortem injuries that forced the state government to hand over the case to the crime branch.However, the crime branch also has been unable to makemuch headway into the matter and has come up with the same findings as the local police. A senior officer admitted not a single person in the college campus has made a statement that the girl was ever ragged by students. Therefore, in spite of the injuries around the girl's private parts, it is difficult to register a case of abetment to suicide against any student, he pointed out.
