The ambulance came down the lane slowly at Kottamala in Nedumangad, a town 25 kilometres from Thiruvananthapuram, carrying the body of Nithin Raj, a 22-year-old Dalit student who took his own life by jumping from the fifth floor of his college in Kannur.
The slope leading to the small house on the hill was lined with faces that did not know what to do with what they were feeling.
Then Latha saw it.
She ran. Down the slope, with no thought for her own body, no thought for the ground beneath her feet, no thought for anything except getting to that vehicle. She had been ill for months. It did not matter. She ran.
She reached the door of the ambulance. She looked inside. Her son was in a freezer box.
She stood there, bawling, inconsolable, unable to move and unable to look away. The people around her did not know whether to hold her or step back. These were moments of grief that cannot be interrupted. Eventually, they did.
This was how Rajan and Latha received their only son back home. Not in a white coat. In a white shroud.
Nithin Raj, from a daily wage labourer's family in Thiruvananthapuram, had secured a BDS seat at Anjarakandy Dental College in Kannur. On the afternoon of April 10, he fell from the fifth floor of his college building and died. What followed was a storm: audio clips of a young man describing caste-based humiliation by his professors, a loan app whose recovery agents had been threatening his teachers, a meeting in the principal's office from which he walked out in tears, and a family that says they knew none of this was about money.
The parents held the caste-based ill treatment by teachers responsible for their son's death. But the latest police investigation has also revealed continuous harassment from a loan recovery app as a parallel thread that authorities are now probing.
"My son had taken a loan of Rs 14,000 from a loan app for my wife's medical treatment," Nithin's father told the media, sobbing without restraint. But he does not believe loan pressure drove his son to death. He blamed the caste-based ill treatment by teachers at the college. The police are investigating both angles.
Rajan paints walls for a living. Latha worked under the MGNREGA scheme until her health failed her last December, when lumps on her neck became infected and she needed treatment. It was Nithin who looked after her.
He topped his Class 10 and Plus Two examinations. He sat for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, or NEET, three times, largely on his own, with no coaching. When a BDS seat came his way at Anjarakandy Dental College in Kannur, he took it, though his heart had always been set on medicine, a dream his mother had planted in him since childhood. He joined college in September 2025.
The Morning of April 10
That morning, Nithin called his elder sister Rekha and asked if she could send Rs 220 to his account so he could buy food. He had also spoken to his father and sisters around 11 am. He had booked a train ticket to come home that day. Nothing in those conversations suggested what was about to happen.
But inside the college that morning, a meeting had been called in the principal's office. A teacher named Latha Sasidharan had filed a complaint after a loan recovery app began calling her repeatedly, demanding repayment of a loan Nithin had taken. Police later confirmed through call data records that Nithin had borrowed money through a mobile application called Insta Pay sometime between December 2025 and January 2026. The loan app had sent 98 messages to his phone and had separately contacted the teacher. After Nithin allegedly defaulted, the recovery agents escalated the pressure.
In the meeting, Nithin denied having shared his teacher's phone number. He said he had provided his father's, mother's, and sister's contact numbers. There was a detail that added to the confusion in the room: his mother's name was also Latha, the same as the teacher's.
By all accounts, teacher Latha Sasidharan had no personal grievance against Nithin, who she regarded as a good student. It was the relentless calls from the recovery agents to her number that pushed her to escalate the matter to the college management.
What was said inside that room is still under investigation. But CCTV footage from outside the principal's office tells part of the story.
Police confirmed they recovered visuals showing Nithin walking out of the room in tears. Witnesses on campus also told police they saw him crying as he came out.
His friends called him for lunch shortly after. He said no. He seemed very angry, his sister Nikitha later told reporters.
Around 1.15 pm, a fellow student found Nithin lying critically injured on a gravel patch between the casualty block and the adjoining hospital building. He had fallen from the fifth floor. He was rushed to Kannur Medical College Hospital and succumbed to his injuries at 3.35 pm.
The college did not call the family to inform them their son had died. His brother-in-law Asokan said they were only told he had suffered an injury. They learned of his death from the news.
What the Audio Clips Said
Two days after his death, three audio clips that Nithin had recorded and sent to friends and family began circulating and changed the nature of the story entirely.
In the recordings, Nithin described visiting the staff room and being verbally abused by Dr MK Ram, the Head of the Dental Anatomy Department. He said the teacher mocked his mother and brought up her surgery. He said the teacher then told him three marks had been deducted from his examination and asked him to go and surprise his parents with the news. He alleged the teacher threatened him with physical harm if he tried to leave. He also said his answer sheet had been circulated among classmates to mock his spelling mistakes. And he said, simply: "I tolerated the insults as far as I could."
His father Rajan told reporters that teachers had called his son a "rotten dog," questioned his right to study at the institution, and mocked the family for being daily wage workers. His sister Nikitha alleged that Nithin had been called a "slum dog" in class in front of other students. She said he had filed a complaint with the principal but nothing came of it.
Nithin's father Rajan
Students of the college also began coming forward with their own testimonies against Dr Ram. Fifth-year student Aashik Narayanan recalled being made to stand in front of the class while Ram asked the rest of the students if he did not look like someone from a slum colony. "He would treat me like I was sub-human and threatened that he would fail me in practicals," Aashik said.
Another student, Nayana Nishikanth, revealed that Ram would single out a student and pressure classmates into physically hitting that person. She recalled a friend being asked to be struck by another student because her voice was considered too feeble. Nayana said Ram targeted students based on skin colour and poor background. "Students were scared of him. He would go after first-year and third-year students especially. Everyone was vulnerable," she said.
The Police Probe
Chakkarakkal police initially registered a case of unnatural death. By Sunday, April 12, they added charges of abetment of suicide under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and invoked the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. The FIR was based on a complaint filed by Nithin's father Rajan.
Kannur City Police Commissioner P Nidhinraj confirmed the formation of a Special Investigation Team headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police Hari Prasad, with cyber cell experts included in the team.
The two accused faculty members, Dr MK Ram and Associate Professor KT Sangeetha Nambiar, were suspended by the college on the evening of April 11. By the time the investigation intensified, both were reportedly missing.
Principal Dr Vinod Mony, speaking to reporters, described what unfolded inside his chamber on the morning of April 10, just hours before the tragedy. He said teacher Latha Sasidharan had come to him with documented proof of repeated threatening calls she had been receiving from the loan recovery agents, demanding that Nithin repay the outstanding amount.
When the calls became too frequent to ignore, she brought the matter formally to the college management. Nithin was then summoned to the principal's chamber, where the teacher placed her evidence before him. Nithin said in the meeting that he intended to repay the loan, and his phone was held back in the chamber during the proceedings. When asked by reporters whether Nithin appeared distressed, the principal acknowledged that the student was visibly embarrassed, given that a teacher had arrived with printed proof of calls she had been receiving on his account.
The principal also stated that the contact numbers available for Nithin's parents were switched off at the time of the incident, which was why the college could not reach the family immediately when the tragedy occurred.
A separate FIR was also registered against the loan app at the Cyber Police Station.
Nithin's classmates rejected the loan app angle entirely. They told police and reporters that Dr Ram routinely used intimidation, body shaming, and threats of academic failure to control students, and that the loan story was being used to shift focus away from the harassment.
Nithin's sister Rekha backed this up with screenshots. When the app agents demanded Rs 50,000 for delayed repayment of an original loan of around Rs 15,000, Nithin negotiated them down to Rs 20,000 and documented every exchange. "He was not afraid of them," she said.
Political Reactions
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a Facebook post that the death was painful and unacceptable and that those responsible had committed an unforgivable act. He called for the enactment of the Rohith Vemula Bill, pointing to the Central government's failure to legislate against discrimination on campus.
Education Minister V Sivankutty said the government was taking the matter with the utmost seriousness and that the family would be given an opportunity to meet the Chief Minister directly. Health Minister Veena George called the death shocking and said caste-based harassment had no place in any campus in Kerala.
Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala called for a high-level probe and said that suspending two teachers was not sufficient accountability. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said the audio recordings pointed to relentless verbal abuse, casteist slurs, threats, and deliberate academic sabotage.
BJP State Secretary Shyam Raj filed a complaint with the National Scheduled Caste Commission, which ordered a special probe and directed the State Police Chief to submit a report within five days.
Kerala University of Health Sciences Vice Chancellor Dr Mohanan Kunnummel visited the family on April 14, called the incident regrettable, and said the university would examine whether the institution should be allowed to continue operating.
SC/ST Commission Chairperson Shekharan Miniyodan called the incident shocking and said it was painful that a student could still be targeted simply for belonging to a Scheduled Caste.
What Remains
Nithin Raj spent years preparing for a future in medicine. He took care of his ailing mother. He negotiated with loan sharks over the phone. He filed a complaint with his principal. He sent voice messages to the people he trusted.
Then he walked out of the principal's office in tears, and was gone within an hour.
Back in Kottamala, instead of celebrating Vishu with their son, his parents are grieving. Two teachers are missing. The college is under scrutiny. And a family that sent their son to study dentistry is now asking a question that remains unanswered: who is accountable for what happened inside those walls?
