Mahendragarh: “I heard her scream, and then the phone went silent.”Recalling the last conversation she had with her daughter, Jyoti’s mother Rajbala Yadav said the call abruptly disconnected on July 28, moments before tragedy struck.“She was talking to me on the phone. Suddenly, the line went dead and I heard her scream. I had no idea that something so terrible had happened to my daughter. By the time we learnt about it, she was gone,” Rajbala said.The last rites of Jyoti were performed at her native village in Mahendragarh on Wednesday evening.“She was brilliant in studies and always topped her class. We had so many dreams for her. Our financial condition is not strong, and we believed she would soon get a good job and transform our lives. Today, all those dreams have been shattered,” her grieving mother said.Rajbala said the family wanted to see Jyoti become a senior officer, while the young scholar herself aspired to become a scientist.Her father, Ravindra Yadav, who works as a school bus driver and supplements the family income through farming, said every sacrifice the family made was centred on their daughter’s education.“Jyoti was exceptionally bright from the beginning. Through sheer hard work, she cleared the UGC-NET and secured the Junior Research Fellowship. She was pursuing her PhD on a scholarship. We believed she would soon secure a good job and help lift the family out of hardship. But fate had other plans,” he said.According to family members, Jyoti completed her schooling in Kakarala village before earning a BSc from Government Girls College, Gurugram, and an MSc from Guru Jambheshwar University, Hisar. During her postgraduate studies, she qualified the UGC-NET and secured the prestigious Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), paving the way for her PhD in Microbiology at Panjab University. She had also cleared the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET).The family said Jyoti was deeply passionate about research, particularly in areas related to plants and the environment, and dreamt of building a career in scientific research.Family questions circumstances of deathThe family said Panjab University officials informed them that Jyoti had allegedly died after suffering an electric shock on the campus. However, her uncle, Jitender Yadav, questioned the circumstances surrounding the incident, claiming the family did not observe visible electrocution marks on her body. “We want to know exactly what happened. The family should be shown the CCTV footage and given a detailed account of the sequence of events,” he said.The family has demanded a fair probe into the circumstances leading to Jyoti’s death and action against those found responsible.
