Kolkata
The body of a third-year undergraduate student was found inside the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur campus on Sunday morning (January 12, 2025).
The deceased was a student in the Electrical Engineering department, and his body was found in the Azad Hall of Residence inside the premises of IIT Kharagpur. Whether the student died by suicide or there was foul play is yet to be confirmed by the police.
According to the sources of this institution, A Hindu they found that the parents of the deceased had always come to visit him at school on Sunday morning (January 12, 2025), but he did not answer their calls. When they knocked on his house, there was no answer. They forcefully opened the door and found his lifeless body.
The source, who did not want to be named, added, “His parents come often because he is suffering from illness. Recently, his parents asked to move him from a three-person room to another, talking about educational problems.”
The body of the 21-year-old man has been sent for post-mortem and the local police are still investigating the matter. There were sniffer dogs, local police and campus security. The police are looking at the phone logs of the deceased as part of the investigation.
A crowd of people had gathered outside the Azad Hall of Residence after the news spread, but later the police were removed.
IIT Kharagpur issued a statement expressing its condolences and said that the student was “an academically gifted student”. They added, “His family is already in a higher education institution.” The police are conducting a thorough investigation into the circumstances… . The center is fully cooperating with the authorities.”
A series of campus deaths
A third year student of IIT Kharagpur was found dead on the premises of Sarojini Naidu/Indira Gandhi Hall on June 17, 2024.
This has come as the death of third-year student Faizan Ahmed at IIT Kharagpur remains unsolved and questions are being probed about the institution’s role in the entire incident. Ahmed’s decomposed body was found inside the IIT Kharagpur campus on October 14, 2022. The body was found in a hostel room that was not originally allotted to him, raising many concerns about security on the IIT premises.
A fourth-year student was also found dead in the higher education institution on October 19, 2023. The student, who hails from Telangana, studied in the Electrical Engineering department.
“Many death tolls like these have led to fear within the institution. There is a lot of academic pressure on students. Most of the third and fourth year students are suffering from depression and this is the main reason for the series of suicides in the institution,” added the source.
(AASRA suicide prevention hotline: 91-9820466726)
Published – January 12, 2025 10:54 pm IST