28 February,2016 09:20 AM IST | | Pallavi Smart
Sunita Ambhore, mother of Dalit IIT-B student Aniket Ambhore, who committed suicide in 2014, says her letter to HRD ministry, didn’t make it to the 61,892 letters Irani claims to have responded to
Her speech in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday - an explanation of the government's stand on the suicide of Hyderabad scholar and Rohith Vemula and the arrest of JNU student's union leader Kanhaiya Kumar - may have got Union HRD Minister, Smriti Zubin Irani both accolades and criticism, however, there is one person at least who feels Irani's ministry has for long denied her justice.
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Sunita and Sanjay Ambhore, parents of Aniket, had visited Rohith Vemula's family earlier this month. Sunita says the Vemulas have been receiving threats, being asked to "back-off" from the case. Pics/Suresh KK
Sunita Ambhore is the mother of Aniket Ambhore - a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) who was found dead after allegedly slipping and falling off the sixth floor of a hostel building in September 2014. It's believed that Aniket may have committed suicide as he wasn't doing well academically.
Ambhore, who has now written an open letter to the Union minister on her Facebook post said, "After the JNU controversy, I feel that institutions of higher education are pointlessly being politicised, whereas, there are more important issues that need attention."
In her post, which Ambhore - a Hindi lecturer - hopes many share, she accuses Irani of lying in the Parliament and also not acting on the 11-page letter that the Ambhores' had written following Aniket's death.
While meeting sunday mid-day at her Prabhadevi home, she said, "We had written a letter to her department on November 29, 2014, regarding the current student scenario, wishing that whatever ill occurred to my son must not happen again with any other student." Ambhore said her family hasn't yet received a response from the ministry.
Ambhore also said that her letter wanted the ministry to ensure that parents were taken into confidence if their child was not performing at the institute - another aspect that seems to have been ignored.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the Ambhore family visited Hyderabad to show their support for Vemula's family. The Ambhores collected R1 lakh to help Vemula's mother in her struggle for justice. "The Vemulas are not even living in their house but are always on the HCU campus. They keep receiving threats asking them to back-off from the case. They have been offered money even. We went to meet them just to show that we support them. It is not easy to lose a young son, we understand their plight," said Ambhore.
