Young man's death was unnecessary

Sandeep Kalita was a young man from Assam in India with a bright future; a good student, much loved by his friends and teachers at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). His demise is a very sad event that should not have happened.

As rightly reported in the article, transportation between the students’ temporary apartments, hotels and dormitories, which are scattered in the Hua Hin-Cha-am areas, and the few temporary campuses at the Palm Hills Golf Course and Phetchaburi areas, is very inconvenient and dangerous. The fatal accident was the third in less than one month, during which AIT has been operating classes at the temporary campuses.

At other universities whose campuses were flooded – like Kasetsart, Rangsit, Bangkok University and AIT’s neighbour Thammasat – efforts were made to clean up and return to their own campuses soonest. But the AIT president chose to desert the campus for that of Stamford University for as long as six months. There are no logical reasons for that move except that Stamford has been taken over by Laureate Education of the US, which has also been trying to take over AIT, amid strong protests as AIT is a public institute which should not be subject to vested interests. The AIT president took the opportunity of the flood to try to tighten the knot of relationship between AIT and Laureate.

When the idea of the temporary relocation became publicly known in early November 2011, a group of AIT students established a Facebook page entitled “Flood situation at AIT” to sound out opinions of fellow students. Negative voices were an overwhelming majority but it fell on deaf ears. I, as president of the Thailand Chapter of the AIT Alumni Association (AITAA), and Chaovalit Ekabut, CFO of SCG Group, as president of the Mother Chapter of AITAA, tried very hard to explain to the board about the inconveniences and dangers of the temporary relocation. But the AIT president and board of trustees decided to go ahead and gamble with the lives of the students.

Now, the gamble is lost and this death is one too many. The AIT president and board cannot deny responsibility for the sad demise of Kalita, the youngest son of MP Bhubaneswar Kalita, president of India’s Assam Pradesh Congress Committee. Those responsible should show their spirit by resigning en masse to give way for the appointment of a new team that can make rational decisions.

Thanin Bumrungsap

Bangkok