UGC sets up four member panel to probe suicide of BEd student at Odisha’s Fakir Mohan college
Press Trust of India | July 15, 2025 | 06:21 PM IST | 1 min read
The panel will look into the circumstances of the incident, examine whether regulatory norms were followed, and propose steps to avoid such cases in future, UGC secretary Sudeep Singh Jain said.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has set up a four-member fact-finding panel to look into the incident of self-immolation by a girl student on college campus in Odisha's Balasore, officials said on Tuesday. The 20-year-old second-year BEd student of Fakir Mohan (Autonomous) College, Balasore had accused the Head of Education Department, Samira Kumar Sahu, of sexually harassing her.
The student set herself on fire on Saturday on the college campus over alleged inaction against the professor and suffered 95 per cent burns. She died at the AIIMS Bhubaneswar on Monday night after battling for life for about 60 hours. "A four-member panel has been formed to examine the circumstances surrounding the incident, including availability and effectiveness of factors such as institutional policies, grievance redressal mechanism, a nti-harassment measures adopted and student support systems," said UGC Secretary Sudeep Singh Jain.
Panel to review incident circumstances
"The panel will examine circumstances surrounding the incident, assess compliance with the stipulated regulatory provisions, and suggest measures to prevent such incidents in future," he added. The panel will be headed by Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Professor and UGC member Raj Kumar Mittal. The members of the panel include former UGC member Sushma Yadav, former Gujarat University vice chancellor Neerja Gupta and UGC Joint Secretary Ashima Mangla.
Follow us for the latest education news on colleges and universities, admission, courses, exams, research, education policies, study abroad and more..
To get in touch, write to us at news@careers360.com.
Next Story
]Balasore college sets up swift trial team after BEd student dies by suicide over harassment complaint
DIG of eastern range, Satyajit Naik said the STI team, comprising investigators, forensic experts and prosecutors, is collecting medical and digital evidence to build a strong case and ensure a swift, coordinated probe.
Press Trust of India | 1 min readFeatured News
]- Experts propose 7 spots for university townships in education ministry’s post-budget webinar
- Primary school teachers in Karnataka must serve 12 years before promotion, say new recruitment rules
- JNU, TISS Mumbai, BHU: Student unions vanish from universities with elections scrapped, councils taking over
- Students in University of Aberdeen, Mumbai, get credential exactly the same they’d get in Scotland: COO
- ‘IIMC to upgrade all journalism and mass communication courses to MA degrees, phase out PG diplomas’: VC
- Rebuilding Calcutta University: VC Ashutosh Ghosh’s priorities are recruitment, fixing finances, reforms
- PARAKH’s Foundational Learning Study 2026 to cover 1 lakh Class 3 students across 10,000 schools
- Telangana: Government Degree College Vikarabad moves out of school and into DIET campus
- ‘Shouldn’t open universities like shops’: Odisha higher education expands but students rue plummeting quality
- Dual degrees, faculty exchange: States bet on foreign university tie-ups, but fine print tells another story