New Delhi: A 17 March call shattered the calm of 21-year-old law student Vansh Gaint’s family. His father answered the phone to hear the registrar of Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) on the other end. The message was brief and unsettling—Vansh had been hospitalised. However, the registrar provided no further details or explanation.
Vansh’s younger brother, Ojas, recalls the frantic search for answers that followed. Desperate, the family contacted the hostel authorities, but no one could explain why Vansh had been taken to the hospital. Through Vansh’s friends, the family eventually learned he was at Apollo and called the hospital. The call was transferred to the emergency department, which broke the devastating news to the family—Vansh was no more.
A third-year student of Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar, Vansh Gaint, was found hanging in his hostel room, with a saffron ‘lungi’ around his neck. Hours after students rushed him to the hospital, the doctors declared him dead. University students are accusing the GNLU administration of “negligence and delays that cost Vansh’s life”.
The incident has once again put the spotlight on the university, racked with allegations of rape, hate speech & queerphobia by students over the last two years. In September 2023, the Gujarat High Court formed a fact-finding committee to look into the students’ complaints, and based on its report, asserted that GNLU was suppressing students’ voices.
Moreover, the top court, in March this year, formed a National Task Force to set guidelines to address and mitigate the underlying causes of student suicides while highlighting the “disturbing pattern” of suicides across universities.
Family and friends recall that Vansh had not shown any signs of distress before his suicide. Just a day before, he had spoken to his family, as he did regularly. “He called almost every day,” his brother says, speaking to ThePrint.
“Conversations were normal. Just a day before [16 March], we had a video call—the entire family spoke to him. Everything seemed fine. It [the suicide] came out of nowhere. We are still in disbelief,” Ojas adds.
“If we had any idea what was going on in his mind, we would have never let this happen,” says Vansh’s uncle Vikas Puri.
On March 18, the police registered a zero FIR under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Section 194, which pertains to their duty to investigate and report on cases of suicide or death caused by another person, at the Infocity Police Station in Gandhinagar. ThePrint has accessed the FIR.
The students allege a delayed response by the university authorities.
“The warden waited too long to break the door. There was no ambulance, no nurse available in the boys’ hostel to give him immediate medical attention, and the nurse who came from the girls’ hostel didn’t even know how to give CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation),” Aarsh Soni, a fifth-year student of BA LLB (Hons), tells ThePrint.
ThePrint reached GNLU director Sanjeevi Shanthakumar, registrar Dr Nitin Malik, and two professors, who, according to the students, showed up at the time of the incident, Sushil Goswami and Satya Ranjan Mishra, via messages and calls. This report will be updated if and when they respond.
Speaking to ThePrint, hostel warden Yogesh Prajapati confirms the unavailability of a nurse in the boys’ hostel or an in-house ambulance while speaking to ThePrint. The university suspended Yogesh after Vansh’s suicide, but the warden says he is unaware of the grounds for his suspension.
Vikas Puri says Nitin Malik had informed him that Vansh was worried about his internship and placement. “Vansh was an intelligent student, a topper. We are not convinced that that alone could have led him to take such a drastic step,” the uncle tells ThePrint.
According to roommate Pritish, Vansh was a cheerful and well-loved person on campus. He recalls how Vansh’s presence would lift people’s spirits, saying, “Everyone knew him for his jokes and lively nature.”
Pritish mentions that even students who did not interact with Vansh regularly—seniors, juniors and classmates—respected him. Juniors often sought his help with notes and projects, and Vansh was always willing to guide them. “Before every test, he would share notes with us and even teach us,” Pritish says, adding that Vansh was not just studious but also incredibly helpful and smart.
17 March: As it happened
“It was a ‘lungi’ that I gifted him,” says Vansh’s close friend Aadi Vignesh, who spoke to the deceased 10 minutes before he was found unconscious in his room on 17 March, a Tuesday. “He was in my room at 4 am [on Monday morning]. We were just playing FIFA, then watched a movie, and then played some more. Since it was a Monday, we had classes the next day, so we went back to sleep.”
On 17 March, Aadi did not see Vansh the entire day. Then, Vansh called him around 11.21 pm. “It was a brief, 39-second conversation. He only asked, ‘Where are you?’ I told him I was in the adjacent room, where I asked him to come. But Vansh hesitated. He just said, ‘No’, but was not very explicit about it,” Aadi tells ThePrint.
Students in the hostel that night recall that one of Vansh’s friends, failing to reach him, knocked on his door at 11.35 pm but got no response. Over the next several minutes, from 11.39 pm to 11.48 pm, the students placed multiple calls to Vansh, but all went unanswered. Growing anxious, one of the students sent a message to the social media group of Vansh’s batch at 11.48 pm, raising the alarm about his well-being.
Two minutes later, at 11.50 pm, a video was shared with the warden, showing Vansh’s immobile feet. Despite that, the warden downplayed the situation, leading to a crucial 25-minute delay before any action, says Aadi.
The students captured the video through a small ventilation gap at the top of the door, usually covered with some papers for privacy. When Vansh did not respond to their repeated knocks, his roommate removed the covering from the ventilation and used a phone to check inside.
“At first, all we could see was that his bed was empty, but his laptop, phone, and spectacles were there—all of which felt odd,” Aadi says. “We pushed the phone further in, and that is when we saw him near the door.”
But the warden, Aadi says, did nothing. “He was on his phone the whole time. We kept begging him to do something, get a step ladder, call someone, but he just stood there.”
According to Yogesh, he entered the hostel premises at 11.55 pm for his midnight shift. “As soon as I saw the video, I immediately informed the higher authorities and tried to break the door,” he tells ThePrint. He denies the allegations of any delay on his part.
In the chaos that followed the video, Aadi glanced at his phone and saw that Vansh had been active on his device just 10 minutes earlier. “I had spoken to him barely 10 minutes before everything started,” he says, adding that when he shouted and gave the warden this information, the man finally stepped up.
Still, ultimately, they had to act, the students say. “Once we started breaking the door, the warden kicked it a couple of times, but it took so long to open because of his inaction,” Aadi says. “In the end, we got it open.”
Meanwhile, Aarsh Soni, a fifth-year student, rushed to the girls’ hostel to get a nurse. Aarsh claims that despite clearly stating that it was an emergency situation and suspected suicide case, the nurse did not act swiftly.
“She went inside, checked his pulse and declared there was none,” Aarsh tells ThePrint. “But instead of performing CPR, she asked others if they knew how to do it.”
The students’ experience that day has reinforced their belief that the nurses in the university are either untrained or unwilling to use their training in critical situations. “It is criminal negligence,” Aarsh says. “If trained, why did she not act?”
Aarsh further alleges a lack of medical facilities in the boys’ hostel. “There is not even a first-aid box,” he says. “For any medical issue—no matter how small—we visit the girls’ hostel. There is no access to any medical services in the boys’ hostel.”
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Delay & further delays
According to the students, the GNLU registrar and a professor arrived at the boys’ hostel at 12.25 am.
With no in-house ambulance and the one the students had called failing to arrive on time, Aarsh and a fourth-year student decided to take Vansh to the hospital themselves.
“No faculty volunteered to come with us in the car we got,” Aarsh says.
The hostel had two wardens, Yogesh and a junior warden, at the time.
“No warden stepped forward. The registrar sir, who was standing right there, also did not offer to accompany us in the same car,” adds Aarsh, saying that it was the university’s negligence that led to Vansh’s death.
He says that professors Sushil Goswami and Satya Ranjan Mishra, however, followed them in another car sometime later.
SMVS Swaminarayan Hospital was the nearest option, only two km away. Before heading that way, the students called ahead, requesting a stretcher. However, when they informed the hospital that they were bringing in a suicide case, the response was shocking.
“The hospital simply told us their ICU was full,” Aarsh recalls.
Aarsh mentions a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the hospital and the university to ensure student access to medical assistance and discounts on treatment. Despite that, the hospital denied their request to admit Vansh. So, with no option left, they took Vansh to Apollo, seven km away, causing further delay in treatment.
Aarsh, along with the fourth-year student, also began administering CPR to Vansh in the car—the first time he received any life-saving support. “At first, he did not respond at all,” Aarsh says. However, as they continued, both of the students distinctly heard something. “At least four or five times, we heard him, trying to breathe. He was groaning,” Aarsh adds.
The two rushed Vansh to the hospital, hoping for a chance. Doctors tried to resuscitate Vansh for nearly 40-50 minutes, but in the end, Aarsh recalls, his friend was gone.
According to the students, the university authorities have formed an inquiry committee, which includes university professors and administrative staff, to look into Vansh’s death and have suspended the warden and the nurse.
However, the students are not hopeful.
After the high court came down heavily on the university in 2023, following a girl’s rape in the university and the sexual harassment of an LGBTQIA+ student, the GNLU administration constituted an Internal Complaints Committee. However, students argue, it has been ineffective due to minimal student representation. The university also has a Student Grievance Redressal Committee, but students claim that there has been no elections to the committee in the past two years.
Two years ago, Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court Sunita Aggarwal, after perusing the fact-finding team’s report on the rape-sexual harassment cases at GNLU, had said: “This report is really scary… it is scary. And the involvement of the GNLU administration, suppressing the whole incident…. and this is not two incidents… incidents of molestation, rape, discrimination, homophobia, favouritism, suppression of voices, lack of existence of internal complaint committee [ICC], lack of information to the students about ICC … and then the registrar is filing an affidavit before us that nothing happened … close the proceeding. He dared to say this in the court when the court was seized with the matter?”
“How will these people protect the children?”
If you are feeling suicidal or depressed, please call a helpline number in your state.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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The situation, with respect to availability of emergency care, is same in most of the pvt universities in the country. And governments dont seem to care.