Kasaragod: More than a year after the death of PhD scholar Rubi Patel at the Central University of Kerala (CUK), Bekal Police, who are investigating the case, said they are still awaiting the forensic analysis report of her phone, laptop, and CCTV footage from the corridor and her guide’s chamber.

Meanwhile, the university has refused to share the internal inquiry report with Rubi's family despite five emails, said her elder sister Dr Asharani Patel in a press conference in Kasaragod on Tuesday, July 22.

She and her husband, Dr Kuleshwar Prasad Sahu, are now in Kasaragod to urge the police and the university to act on the case, and not let Rubi’s death become just another cold statistic.

Rubi, a 27-year-old researcher in Hindi and Comparative Literature from Odisha, was found dead in her hostel on April 2, 2024, in a case of suspected suicide.

They alleged that Rubi's PhD guide, Prof Taru S Pawar, mentally harassed her and placed her under constant personal and professional stress.

According to Dr Asharani, who spent an entire day at the Bekal police station, Prof Pawar claimed in his statement to the investigating officer that Rubi was "not fit for pursuing a PhD".

"This is a false narrative being spread -- that she lacked academic competence. Rubi cleared the UGC-NET three times and secured the national OBC fellowship in 2023. She completed her post-graduation from the University of Hyderabad," said Dr Asharani, a scientist at ICAR–Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.

"She was neither depressed nor academically weak. By now, the police should have completed the forensic analysis of the CCTV footage from the guide's chamber and verified our suspicion that she was humiliated and harassed by him," said Dr Sahu, an assistant professor at Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University in Jhansi.

Dr Asharani said she submitted a petition to Kasaragod District Police Chief B V Vijay Bharath Reddy on Tuesday, seeking his intervention in the investigation.

When contacted, Bekal Station House Officer - Inspector Sreedas said that the CCTV footage, Rubi's phone and laptop were with the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL) in Kumbla. "I recently took charge as the SHO. I'm studying the case," he said.

But in her petition to the District Police Chief, Dr Ashrarani pointed out that Rubi's phone number was assigned to another subscriber by the service provider. "It is unacceptable. This development not only hampers the investigation but also raises serious concerns about the handling of evidence and the integrity of the investigation process," she wrote in her petition.

Another faculty member told Onmanorama that police recorded their statement, but it was not part of the file now.

However, the Bekal police said the family's main concern now was not receiving the internal inquiry report from the university. When contacted, a university official said that the report was not shared with the family because a police investigation was ongoing.

"We were made to run around for Rubi's postmortem report. Now, we have written five times to the university for the report. They did not even reply to the mails. Let alone share the report," said Dr Asharani.

She said she raised the matter with the new Vice-Chancellor, Prof Siddu P Algur, on Monday, July 21. "He asked me to send another email, which he assured me the university would respond to," she said.

Onmanorama had reliably learned that the 11-member internal committee, formed to inquire into Rubi's death, did not arrive at any conclusion but recommended that the case should be investigated by the CBI.

The two PhD scholars on the inquiry committee -- Shibina E (International Relations & Politics) and Abhijith C (Linguistics) -- abstained from signing the report in protest for not holding any individual or factor responsible for Rubi's death.

The family said that if the university’s internal inquiry had indeed recommended a CBI investigation into Rubi’s death, it amounted to an abdication of responsibility. "We have no evidence that the university has followed up on the recommendation in earnest or approached the government or any court for a CBI inquiry," said Dr Asharani.

According to student leaders, the committee took the statements of 36 people but completed its probe without examining CCTV footage from the corridor cameras or from inside the PhD guide’s chamber.

Rubi's second sister, Nisha Patel, a cancer survivor and economics PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, said that her guide chose her as a research scholar without even speaking to her. "She didn’t seek his supervision, and we had actually tried to avoid him based on feedback from other students," said Nisha.

The sisters said the meeting with the Vice-Chancellor gave them a glimmer of hope. "Rubi's death is killing every member of our family, a little more each day," said Dr Asharani. "We need closure."