Death leads to lab dress code

COIMBATORE: The death of a Nepalese student in a freak accident at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) laboratory last week has prompted university authorities to make it compulsory for students to wear an overcoat while working in the laboratories. Recently, a Nepalese postgraduate student Shrijana Gairhe got strangled to death when her dupatta got stuck in a plant sample grinder machine in the lab. The decision to impose the lab dress code with immediate effect was taken at a meeting of top officials of the University on Sunday evening.“By wearing an overcoat, students can cover their dupattas, thus preventing incidents like the death of the Nepalese student,” said P Murugesa Boopathi, TNAU Vice Chancellor. Initially, University authorities as an extreme precaution, had planned to ban the wearing of dupatta altogether but dropped the idea since they thought it might not go down well with the students. “Earlier, it was compulsory for girl students to wear only Sarees. But, following requests we have allowed them to wear Churidars and Salwar Kameez,” Boopathi said. The University will also enforce time restriction for students to do research work in the laboratory. “It was decided to allow students to do their research work in labs only during the working hours,” he said and added that the University had instructed heads of departments and chairman of admission council to enforce the instructions strictly.The Vice Chancellor recalled that the second year MSc Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry student Gairhe (25), who was killed in the freak mishap, had encountered trouble because of her dupatta in the past. “Once when she was riding a bicycle on the campus, her dupatta had got entangled in the wheel,” he said.