Kharagpur: Yet another student was found dead within the campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, on Saturday. This was the sixth death of a student at the premier institute, ranked fifth among engineering colleges in the country.
According to the police, the body of Harsh Kumar Pandey (24), a research scholar from Jharkhand, was recovered from his room in the B R Ambedkar Hall.
“Prima facie, it seems that the student took his own life. He was found hanging in his room. The body has been sent for autopsy and his family members have been informed. We are probing all angles and will speak to students and staff,” a police official said.
This is the fifth case of hanging at the country’s oldest IIT this year. The death of the sixth student was an accident. This has left academics wondering if all is well at the institute that was set up in 1951.
Shaon Malik, a third-year student of electrical engineering, was found dead in January this year. This was followed by the death of Aniket Walker, a final-year student of Ocean Engineering, in April. He was also found hanging in his room.
In May, 22-year-old third-year civil engineering student named Mohammad Asif Qamar, was found hanging. Barely two months later, a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering student named Ritam Mondal (21) was found hanging in his hostel room. He was a resident of Kolkata.
In July, Chandradeep Pawar, a 19-year-old Electrical Engineering student, had choked on a normal cough and cold tablet he tried to gulp down after dinner in the Nehru Hall mess.
College authorities say they have several mechanisms in place to prevent students from taking their own lives.
The question is whether they are working.
