Balasore sexual harassment case: She taught others to fight, but when she cried for help, no one turned up

BALASORE: She taught others to fight. She raised her voice. But when she cried for help, no one listened. The 20-year-old college student who set herself on fire after accusing her professor of sexual harassment was cremated Tuesday amid tears, anger and disbelief in her village in Odisha's Balasore district.

Doctors at AIIMS Bhubaneswar declared her dead on Monday night, nearly 60 hours after the second-year student was admitted with critical burns.

Her body arrived early Tuesday. Villagers gathered silently, some in shock, many in grief. Her mother wept beside the coffin: "She had gone to college after Bahuda Yatra and said she would return soon. She promised. But she came back... like this."

The father, a clerk at a government-run women's college, stood frozen. "My daughter was strong. If the investigation had been done properly from the beginning, maybe this wouldn't have happened," he said.

Wrapped in white, the woman who once taught self-defence, wrote poetry, excelled in stage acting and social work, and was taking disaster management classes, now lay still. Her elder brother, 24, choked through his sorrow. "No matter how much politics is played now or how loudly people demand justice, what difference will it make?"

The funeral procession passed through narrow lanes where she once played, studied and spoke up. "Long live the brave daughter," mourners shouted as her body was taken to the cremation ground under heavy police deployment. Balasore MP Pratap Sarangi, Bhograi MLA Gautambuddha Das, Balasore Sadar MLA Manas Dutta, and Remuna MLA Gobinda Chandra Das attended the funeral. District officials also paid respects.

At the cremation site, the grief broke into questions. "Why did no one help her? Why was her voice ignored?" asked neighbour Sunil Kar. "She dared to speak. But her courage was met with silence." Now, only silence remains.