Sujatha case: Wheels of justice begin to roll

MANGALORE: Three years after Sujatha’s death, the wheels of justice have finally begun to roll. In 2008, Botany lecturer in Mangalore University, Sujatha, gave up her fight against her tormentors and committed suicide by consuming sleeping pills. Her husband, J V Amar, along with U K Girish Kumar and Nirmal Kumar of the district unit of Karnataka Rajya Dalit Sangarsha Samithi kept knocking at the doors of justice, which had remained shut until a week ago.As many as five investigating officers had tried to bring the six accused men named in Sujatha’s diary to task, Mangalore police sources told Express. After taking note of the case, Karnataka State Human Rights Commission directed IGP (Western Range) A M Prasad to investigate the case. Prasad submitted a report to the commission in September 2008 exposing the university’s failure to prevent sexual and mental harassment of women on its campus. However, finally it was DySP Girish and ACP Puttamadaiah who revived a ‘dead case’. Girish got the suicide note, which named former head of Applied Botany Department Rasheed Ahmed, former registrar of Mangalore University K Sundar Naik, head of Kannada Department K Abhay Kumar and former vice-chancellor of Mangalore University Prof K M Kaveriappa, verified by experts. Girish, who had come close to filing a chargesheet, was transferred to Lokayukta in Bangalore. But Puttamadaiah left no stone unturned in his pursuit to land the wrongdoers behind bars