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Protest over student’s death

VISAKHAPATNAM: The death of a girl staying at the Tribal Welfare Department’s hostel for girl students at MVP Colony here reportedly owing to diarrhoea due to poor conditions in the hostel sparked protest by students here and in Araku Valley on Thursday.

Students staying in the hostel have been complaining that the conditions in the hostel are extremely bad. Nearly 40 girls are staying in a room, the drinking water is contaminated and food quality poor. The overall hygiene is poor.

Several of them were suffering with diarrhoea for the last few days and were sent to a local hospital. One of the students Killo Bhagyalakshmi, studying first year B.Sc. in the VMC Mahila College, who had gone to her native village Battivalasa near Araku Valley died late on Thursday night, reportedly due to diarrhoea.

As the news of Bhagyalakshmi’s death reached here, SFI launched a protest and girl students held a demonstration and organised a rasta-roko in MVP Colony junction demanding better facilities in the hostel. They held the hostel warden responsible and wanted the Government to take action against her. SFI’s tribal students’ wing leader Jagat said no official was concerned about the conditions in the hostel even after the death of Bhagyalakshmi. At Araku Valley also the SFI and AP Girijana Sangham held protest demonstrations. Bhagyalakshmi’s collegemates Chandrakala and Saraswati while talking to reporters at Battivalasa on Friday said they and Bhagyalakshmi had fallen sick and were given some medicines at the hostel.

Later, they were told to go home. They reached Battivalasa on Wednesday and Bhagyalakshmi’s condition became critical the next day. She died on way to the CHC at Araku Valley late on Thursday .

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