While India is celebrating wins for Sakshi Malik and PV Sindhu, a far bleaker story of sport at the national level has emerged from Patiala, Punjab. Indian national handball player Pooja. a student of BA-II, committed suicide after being denied hostel allocation under the sports quota at Khalsa College.
The allocation would have saved the 20-year-old, whose father is a vegetable vendor, almost Rs. 4000 per month; a sum that the family were unable to afford. Distraught over the circumstances, Pooja hanged herself in her room.
In a suicide note addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she said that her poverty and inability to afford the hostel led her to take her own life. Holding a professor at the college directly responsible, the player said “he was the one who refused to give (me) the hostel room and asked her to commute from her house every day. However, this will cost me around Rs 3,720 per month and my father could not afford it.”
Punjab police have registered a case of abetment of suicide against the professor in question.
Dharminder Singh Ubha, the president of the College, claimed to police and reporters that the student had ‘already been given free hostel facility.’
In a time when athletes need support for their careers to take off, a young sportswoman saw her life nipped in its prime over a sum that for many would be considered relatively ‘small,’ but in her case was the difference between life and death.
