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Main accused in Kerala engineering student death case arrested

Trivandrum - Baiju K Balakrishnan, who drove the jeep that hit Thesni Basheer, had fled to Tamil Nadu after the incident.

The prime accused in the case in which an engineering student was killed after being hit by a jeep on the campus of College of Engineering at Trivandrum was arrested by the Kerala police on Sunday.
Seventh semester mechanical engineering student Baiju K Balakrishnan, who drove the jeep that hit Thesni Basheer, a third year civil engineering student at the college, had fled to Tamil Nadu after the incident. He surrendered before the police after the city police took his parents into custody.
A case under Section 304 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), pertaining to culpable homicide, has been registered against Baiju and nine others, who were in the ill-fated jeep at the time of the mishap. The police have identified six of them from the CCTV footage and the search for them is on.
The jeep that was part of the Onam procession taken out by the students has been seized along with another jeep and truck that formed part of the celebrations. Baiju, who was questioned by city police commissioner Sanjay Kumar, has admitted that he had driven the jeep.
However, he said that the jeep had hit Thesni, daughter of a Doha-based Non-resident Keralite (NRK), accidently. He said he had not seen his college mate, who was walking to her hostel, when the jeep entered the college premises. Baiju was later taken to the college campus for gathering evidence.
The mishap, second on the CET campus, has created outrage in the city. Another student was killed in a bike accident on the campus 13 years ago. Following this, the authorities had placed restrictions on the entry of vehicles into the campus.
Hundreds of students in jeeps, bikes and a lorry thronged the campus flouting the rules. Even though the security guard tried to stop them, he was pushed away.
The Kerala Students Union, (KSU), the student wing of the ruling Congress party, has blamed the Students Federation of India (SFI), affiliated to the opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist), for the mishap.
KSU president V.S. Joy alleged that the jeep, which was involved in several unlawful activities in the past, was owned by SFI unit secretary Sreerag. Baiju and other students against whom cases have been registered also belong to the SFI. He has urged the state leadership of the student union to remove them from the organisation.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Abu Rabb said that the government would bring out a code of conduct for students to avert such incidents in future. He has called a high-level meeting of all stake holders next week to discuss the matter.
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