Chennai/New Delhi: Another student allegedly died by suicide in the Indian Institute of Technology Madras campus on Friday, barely two days after authorities announced a series of wellness programmes on mental health issues.
Second-year B. Tech student Kedar Suresh, 20, was found dead in the Cauvery Hostel room Friday, taking the death toll from suicide this year to four.
Suresh was hanging from the ceiling fan Friday after the Kotturpuram police broke open his hostel door. His fellow students had alerted the authorities after they found his door locked from the inside.
Police sources said the student’s body was sent for an autopsy to the Royapettah government hospital.
The institute mourned the boy’s death in an official statement, saying it was “taking all possible measures to proactively identify and help students under stress. We will continue to keep strengthening these measures”.
The statement also read: “We are deeply anguished to convey the untimely passing away of an undergraduate student from the Chemical Engineering Department in the afternoon of 21 April 2023 in his hostel room. The Institute has lost one of its own, and the professional community has lost a good student. The reason for the demise is unknown. Police are investigating. The parents have been informed. The Institute expresses its heartfelt condolence and shares the grief of the friends and family of the deceased student. The Institute requests everyone to respect the privacy of the student’s family at this difficult juncture… May the departed soul rest in peace.”
On 19 April, IIT Madras had said it would conduct a series of wellness programmes for students, inviting renowned speakers to talk on mental health. The programme was to be conducted in the campus in association with the National Health Mission, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu.
On 31 March, PhD student from West Bengal Sachin Kumar, 32, was found hanging in his home in Velachery, a residential area near the college campus. Over 100 students protested last week, demanding probe by a committee into these suicides.
Two weeks earlier on 14 March, third-year B. Tech student from Andhra Pradesh, V. Vaipu Pushpak Sree Sai, died by suicide in his room in the Alaknanda hostel. At that time, IIT Madras had said a recently-formed internal inquiry committee, including student representatives, would look into such incidents.
On 13 February — research scholar Stephen Sunny, 24, from Maharashtra was found dead in his hostel room. On the same day, another student attempted suicide but was stopped on time.
Suicide plagues other IITs too. That same month, 18-year-old Darshan Solanki, allegedly died by suicide in IIT Bombay by jumping off the seventh floor of a campus building. Darshan’s family, who are from a backward community, alleged he was ostracised because of caste.
In a Parliamentary session in March, the Education ministry informed that as many as 33 students had died by suicide since 2018 in the country’s various IITs.
The IITs have the highest deaths among institutions, followed by the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) — which reported 24 such deaths in this period — and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMS) with four.
The recent spate of deaths at IITs have many worried, including ministers and officials. On 21 March, Education Minister Dharmendra pradhan chaired a high-level meeting to discuss the emotional and physical wellbeing of students. He directed officials to create a framework to help students.
A statement released at that time said: “The framework will institutionalise safeguards and mechanisms that can ensure comprehensive protection to students from any threat or assault — physical, social, discriminatory, cultural, and linguistic; causing psychological distress leading to self-harming/self-destructive tendencies among students.”
In its recent meeting, the IIT Council too took up the issue of mental wellbeing, trying to understand depression among students.
A communique after the meeting read: “Director, IIT Gandhinagar presented the possible underlying societal, psychological and other health issues behind depression among students. The Council discussed steps needed to ensure mental health and wellness of students. It focussed on the need of a robust grievance redressal system, increasing psychological counselling services, reducing pressure and highlighting the importance of reducing fear of failure/rejection among students.”
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