BY PRASANTA KUMAR DASH
Bhubaneswar, July 15: The tragic death of Soumyashree Bisi, a student of FM Autonomous College Integrated Bed. Course after a frantic struggle between life & death following her self-immolation bid, wreaked a wave of gloom over the safety and security of the girl students in the Odisha-based educational institutions.
Deceased, Soumyashree who had although set teaching as her aim of life inspired by the noble ideologies of the teachers she came across, she was passionate to be more like a social activist, especially realting to the field of woman empowerment, gender equality and self- defence of school & college going girls. It’s why the 20-year lass had adopted self-defence mechanism as one of her hobbies.It was why she was utilizing her leisure mostly in physical exercises including hopping, jugging, beaming among other warmup workouts. With it, she was not only preparing herself for facing and tackling with the adverse situations, she anticipated to face ahead on the walk of life, rather she was keen to induct the self-defence mechanisms, to her friends, fellow girls and even the relatives, aiming to ensuring their physical & social safety. To instill the will & strength of self-defence among the College girls in a more efficient, organised and institutional manner, she received professional breakthroughs from experts on self-defence, and after acquiring life-saving and retaliatory defence skills she was training college-goer girls on how to combat situations like physical assault, molestation and other intimidiating threats, if they face somewhere in their lives.
Apart from it, to make social service a career, Soumyashree had acquired disaster management skills, attending OSDMA’s skill development and Special Orientation Programs & Training camps, at the threshold of cyclone, flood and other disastrous situations faced by the state. With the Samaritan skills, she dreamed of serving the distressed ones with her body, mind and spirit. However, the tender girl who was budding true volunteering spontaneously within her mind, and keen to boost it up with impetus of knowledge & wit, getting a BEd. Degree side by side, could not ensure a safe teaching-learning environment for her own. She faced adverse situation in her college life where the sheer perpetrator was nobody but her subject teacher. The Head of the Education Department, who was almost assigned to inculcate morality and true educational values to her, inhumanely outraged her modesty, begging illegal favour to condone her missed classes and poor scores in the Semester Exams. However, the strong & stout girl, without acting seriously on the unusual impulse, at first informed his parents and shared her ordeal with colleagues. Later, she lodged her complaint with the College Principal through the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) for justice.
With the inordinate delay in redressing her moral concern, she attempted suicide shuting doors of her hostel room, on July 1 which was somehow foiled by the councelling of some senior students. Meanwhile, she spent sleepless nights as the accused HOD Samira Sahu frequently threatened her saying,“You can do no harm to me, rather you will be rusticated from the college for your bid to go against my will”.
Following the intolerable threat relating to her future, poor Soumyashree deposed before the Principal Dilip Ghosh, expressed her agony and demaded swift solution to her mental stress and academic problems.
The irresponsible Principal on the other hand, dealt the matter as shappily as he had suppressed the complaint at his end for months, favoring the accused faculty.On the fateful day, Soumyashree was summoned by the Principal to his office chamber where he presented the enquire report submitted by the Internal Complaint Committee, that was a clean chit to the accused faculty. He also alleged that all faults are with Soumyashree as she raised false and fabricated allegations against the upright Education Department HOD, for which she will be rusticated from the college. The partial verdict of the Principal abeted the ignited mind to think of the extreme way to end self, dousing petrol on her and set herself ablaze, in a bid to end her ordeal for good. With a few minutes to it, she attempted self-immolation before the Principal’s chamber where scores of friends rescued from the scene and rushed her to the hospital in a critical condition. Later, she was referred to AIIMS Bhubaneswar for better care where the revolutionary girl with Samaritan qualities within her, silenced for ever, following a three-day struggle with life.
Mourning the tragic demise of their ward, the distraughted parents said, “Soumyashree was as brave as a boy. She was very good at study and even excelled in non-scholastic events. She was a social activist both inner & outer who was always passionate for the needy & distressed people. Her righteous protest against evils proved fatal for her.”
