Ugh. Dr. Srinivas Ramachandra Siras, the 64-year-old chairman of the Modern Indian Languages department at Aligarh Muslim University in India, who was suspended and then reinstated by a court after being unknowingly videotaped having sex with another man, was just found dead.
Suicide is suspected — and just after the professor reported feeling vindicated by the whole ordeal, and telling a television reporter “now I can go back to my beloved university. … I am happy because I have been judged in a wrong way. I have already said that I am gay. I am the same man, with the same qualification, with the same features and personality.”
Mike L.
Probably someone somehow related to the school (i.e. professor, student, parent of a student etc) commited and honor killing upon him, or the stress was too much, I believe the former could be more likely.
jsmith
I don’t know if I buy suicide. Tragic still however.
indo_am
@Mike L.: Its better not to comment when you are culturally ignorant. Honor killings exist in the Middle East, where India is not, and mostly amongst Muslims, which Prof. Siras was not (despite teaching in a predominantly Muslim college).
Most likely he committed suicide. He could have been murdered, yes, but it would not be a “honor killing”.
Cam
I seriously doubt it was suicide. If he was going to commit suicide, why not do it when he was first exposed and then fired? Why go through all that hell only to do it when you’ve won, gotten your job back etc…
Cam
Additionally, INDO_AM makes an interesting point. This was a predominently muslim college, in a country with a enormous mulslim population with extreamly close ties to the mulim population of Pakistan. Pakistan is known for killings of family memebers and others that insult the family. So INDO_AM, I would say to you that this could have been a type of honor killing. Perhaps some of the students there would rather kill the teacher than be graduate from a school that would be “Dishonored” by having an evil homosexual on staff.
AlwaysGay
I also don’t believe the suicide story. He wouldn’t go on TV after that ordeal if he was ashamed.
chicagotist
People,
The word “Muslim” is in the name of the university. So, it’s not just a “predominantly Muslim” school. It is also an officially Muslim school.
I don’t buy the suicide story either.
biguy
@indo_am: You’re the culturally ignorant one. “Honor killings exist in the middle east”? Like only there? Like not in Pakistan, India, the Balkans, Indonesia or any other place there are a bunch of ass-backward bigots who just aren’t gonna stand for non-traditional geneder/sex identities? There are most certainly non-Muslim honor killings in India, and there are plenty of non-Muslims who would view a gay relative as enough of an embarrassment to justify killing them.
Here’s a couple of links for you, maybe do a google search next time you want to type something so stupid:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/01/honor-killings-crimes-of-passion-and.html
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article364946.ece
If it wasn’t an honor killing by murder I would bet he committed suicide because he felt that he dishonored his family/caste. The difference there is simply one of semantics.
Ashok
@indo_am:
“Honor killings exist in the Middle East, where India is not, and mostly amongst Muslims”. Really? Are you one of the ignorant Indians who is ashamed of the numerous honour killings that happen in the country that you would like to pass it off as an Islamic problem?. Honour killings are common throughout North India where boys and girls of different castes who marry are hacked to death by their own parents so as to protect their honour.
Need an idea of it’s extent in India? http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=indian honour killings
Ashok
The honour word got removed in the URL. Just Google news search the term “honour killing india”
El Brucio
How incredibly sad and suspicious.
Then again, this is the same country where bride-burnings for nonpayment of extra dowries are written off as suicides or kitchen accidents.
SSCHIEFRSHA
Suicide could be a possibility here. There was no way he could have resumed his “normal” life after making those headlines. Imagine, his ego inflated by the coverage of his story, further enlarged by the people’s court ruling. He must have thought the world was on his side. Alas, he returns home after the ball only to find he’d become a pariah—avoided by both faculty and student body, no one is signing up for his classes, reality sets in. It is after all a Muslim University, in no such establishment could he expect any such indiscretion to be forgiven. All is lost. After a while, the gates of the Hades begin to call to him. In this case he answered the call. Poor man. He found redemption in the hangman’s noose.
Kieran
What a coincidence.
CHIP1218
@indo_am:
Honor killings exist in India! In some regions of India, brides are expected to kill themselves when their husband dies as well.
RTM
@CHIP1218:
You are wrong. Widows are not expected to kill themselves anywhere in India. It is a severe criminal offense to even suggest that somebody should do that.
And honour killings in India take place mainly in Punjab and Haryana. They are much rarer in Uttar Pradesh, where this university is situated. Besides, even if this were murder, it won’t be called “honour killing” because that is normally carried out by the family of the victims.
If this is a suicide, then SSCHIEFRSHA hit it on the nail. In fact this was my first impression too. We need to wait for full details still. Cops haven’t ruled out suicide, that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily suicide.
RTM
And btw, natural causes (such as heart attack, brain hemorrhage, etc) have not been ruled out either.
So we should really wait for the post mortem report rather than jumping the gun over it.
Jean-Paul, Canada
Yes, #12, 15 & 16 have the correct approach. A man was found dead, that’s all that was reported.
Still, had I been Dr. Sivas, I would not have hesitated for one moment to settle for an early retirement….somewhere in Hawaii.
Dr. Sivas loved the University; commendable, of course, but in this case perhaps detrimental to his health. No joke intended.
Gay India
Why would someone who was reinstated by a court and happy to get his job back last week commit suicide?
He was due to retire in 6 months anyway.
The whole thing seems extremely fishy.
And the cops have been quick to call it a suicide.
These are the same cops who refused to accept the professor’s complaint about people trespassing in his home….
Hope we get to the bottom of the whole thing
delurker again
He’s kinda old. Maybe natural causes?
Lucius vorenus
He was killed. He could easily have asked for early retirement, and could have lived quietly in anonimity. What happened here was that someone faked his suicide.
It was murder.
Gay India
Police confirm that it was poisoning and not natural causes
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Police-say-poison-traces-found-in-body/602147
raghu
hoping they get to the bottom of the issue….
we owe Dr.siras that much…