A pathologist has ruled out suicide after a body of a 21-year-old student at the Moi University main campus was found hanging in a lecture room.
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) Eldoret pathologist Dr Benson Macharia claimed that the second-year student, Japheth Mwaniki, did not commit suicide.
Dr Macharia said postmortem results showed that the student had no physical injuries on the body that could indicate that he committed suicide.
“Suicide claims might have been stage-managed because no notable injuries were seen in the neck to indicate that the deceased committed suicide,” said Dr Macharia.
The body of the micro-biology student was on Saturday found hanging from the ceiling of a lecture hall at the main campus.
Kesses OCPD Aaron Muriasi said investigations into the incident is ongoing adding that preliminary investigations revealed that the student was communicating with his parents before he was found dead.
“The incident occurred at the time second-year students had been sent home a month ago following a strike and it was not clear how the deceased was still in the institution,” said Muriasi.
Mwaniki’s family who is from Laikipia County want the police to investigate the matter and action taken against anyone found culpable.
The mother, Monica Mungai, said they got news of their son’s death from social media after pictures of his death were doing rounds online.
Mungai said the pictures showed that the hands and neck of his son were tied and the family questioned how his son committed suicide.
“We called some of his friends in the campus and they revealed that our son had been taken by police from Kesses Police Station to the mortuary.”
“We have tried to reach out to the varsity administration but they failed to respond and to shed light on the unfortunate incident that happened to our son,” said Mungai.