The suspect (50) is the state secretary of a political party and runs a girls’ hostel from his residence in the Hudco area of Nanded, where 40 girl students reside. He has been booked under BNS sections 108 and 223 along with relevant provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act at the Nanded Rural police station.The deceased, Akanksha Gaikwad (25), was a student at the Padmashri Shamraoji Kadam Homoeopathic Medical College in Hudco and the only daughter of her parents, who are brick kiln workers. She stayed at the private hostel for about a year, as her residence at Wajegaon in Nanded taluka, is far from the college.According to the FIR lodged by her father, Munjajirao Gaikwad (47), Akanksha stayed at the hostel by paying Rs 2,500 per month as rent. In his complaint, Gaikwad said that his daughter had not paid the hostel fees for the past eight to 10 months, and had told him that the hostel owner had been repeatedly pressuring and harassing her to clear the dues.On Friday, around 1.26pm, Gaikwad received a phone call from a relative informing him that Akanksha had hanged herself in the hostel room. He and his wife went to the hostel where they found their daughter hanging from a ceiling fan with a scarf in a room on the second floor of the building.Personnel from the Nanded Rural police station were already present at the spot. The body was taken to the Government Medical College and Hospital at Vishnupuri for postmortem. In the complaint, the father also expressed suspicion about the circumstances surrounding the death. He claimed that Akanksha was determined to pursue her education despite hardships and was not someone who would take such a step.He further alleged that the hostel owner continued to harass his daughter over the pending fees despite knowing that she belonged to a Scheduled Caste community, which drove her to take the extreme step. Police registered the case and launched further investigation.
