The family of Asiina Agasha, a Ugandan student who fell off an university building and died, has insisted that their daughter did not commit suicide as had been alleged by the institution and some sections of the media in India.
Agasha, 22, was in her final year at Gitam University where she was pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree of Business Administration. The girl from Kiruhura, who was in India on scholarship, died on April 27, a few months to her graduation, leaving her family, friends and classmates in grief.
In fact, students at the university held a protest, condemning the university’s administration of failure to put in place safety measures on the institution’s buildings. The angry and grieving students said that had the university should put barriers around the windows of the hostel, Agasha would not have died in the manner she did.
Agasha is said to have been residing on the seventh floor of the university hostel building. On the days she died. She had reportedly walked to pick the clothes she had washed and hung out to dry. But a bedsheet hung near the window and she moved to collect it. Unfortunately she fell fell off the window. She died on her way to hospital, according to Indian media.
Two accounts exist on the manner in which Agasha died. While some sections of the Indian media and some in the university’s management claim that the 22-year-old jumped from the window as a mode of committing suicide, her family insists that it was an accident caused by the university’s negligence.
On May 05, Agasha’s body was returned to Uganda, arriving at the Entebbe International Airport in the afternoon. A burial ceremony will take place in Sanga, Kiruhura District on May 06, according to family members.
The family has now released photos as part of evidence to prove that Agasha died as a result of an accident occasioned by negligence on part of Gitam University’s management and administration.
The photos show a wooden floor on building. The family says it is this weak floor that collapsed when Agasha stepped on it, making her land from where she was to the ground, and, consequently, dying. Family members say that Agasha did not know that the wooden floor was so weak, otherwise she would not have stepped on it.
Agasha’s father Abudallah Kanyemera Mukasa has been quoted as saying that he will sue Gitam University’s management and administration over their negligence which he believes was responsible for the untimely demise of his daughter.
Kanyemera also says that the university has since made a U-turn regarding its position on whether Agasha committed suicide or if it was an accident, especially after the police and autopsy report ruled out suicide.
He has also wondered why it took the university four days to release the postmortem report even when the police had informed the family about the release of the autopsy report.
