In messages sent to her family before she took the step, the girl said the men who abused her had threatened to post her photos on social media if she complained to anyone.
A 17-year-old student in Visakhapatnam has died by suicide after jumping off her college building. In a long text exchange with her family minutes before she took the plunge, the student said she was sexually harassed at the college and could not complain to the institution’s authorities or the police because her harassers had taken photos of her and had threatened to post them on social media.
In the heart-rending messages, the girl told her family that some of her fellow students in the college had also been sexually assaulted, and then addressed her elder sister, writing, “Sorry didi, I have to go.”
The teenager was a student of a polytechnic college in Visakhapatnam – name withheld to protect her identity – and her family, which lives in neighbouring Anakapalle district of Andhra Pradesh, had got a call from the institute’s authorities around 10 pm on Thursday that she had gone missing. When she did not answer her phone for some time, the family informed the police.
Around 12.50 am on Friday, the girl finally responded to frantic messages from her family and asked them not to be tense.
“Don’t get tense, listen to me, I can’t tell you why I am leaving and, even if I do, you won’t understand. Please forget about me. I am really sorry. Mom and dad, I am grateful that you gave birth to me and brought me up. My chapter is coming to an end,” she wrote in Telugu.
Congratulating her elder sister, who is expecting a baby, the girl also had a message for her younger sister, “Focus on your future and study whatever you like. Don’t get distracted, don’t be influenced by others, unlike me. Always be happy, and have a good life.”