India, July 19 -- Bhubaneswar Less than a week after a 20-year old B.Ed student in a Balasore college attempted self-immolation to protest inaction and harassment following her complaints of sexual harassment by a professor, and three days after her death, it has emerged that 71 of her 100 classmates wrote a letter on July 1, supporting the professor against whom she complained.

The woman's family, friends, and even some classmates say the letter shows how everyone "ganged up" against her at the prompting of the college administration.

The two page letter written in Odia accused the girl of levelling false allegation against head of the department of teachers' education, Samir Kumar Sahoo at Fakir Mohan(Autonomous) College . It came a d...