GUWAHATI
A student of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) was found dead in his hostel room on September 16 night.
An officer at the Amingaon police station said the student, identified as Surya Narayan Premkishore, was from Kerala. The IIT-G is in the Amingaon area across the Brahmaputra from Guwahati.
“He was found hanging in his hostel room. We have taken the body for post mortem,” the officer said.
“It is with great sadness that IIT Guwahati announces the untimely passing away of a final year undergraduate student of Design Department on the campus. The institute has informed the parents of the student and they are on their way to Guwahati,” a statement from the IIT-G administrative office said.
There have been several cases of IIT-G students dying by suicide over a decade.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development had on December 2, 2019, told Parliament that the IIT-G reported 14 student deaths, including by suicide, in the last five years. It was the highest number of deaths in any of the 23 IITs for the given period, the Ministry said.
In September 2018, an 18-year-old student of IIT-G died by suicide as she was unhappy about having to study engineering, the police had said citing a letter she had left behind. Nagashree S.C. from Hosanagara in Karnataka, the student wrote she was sorry that she could not fulfil the expectations of her parents.
In January 2019, a fourth semester B.Tech student from Andhra Pradesh, identified as Pannem Pavan Siddardha, was found hanging in his hostel room. So was Kota Onoda, a student from Japan’s Gifu University who was on a three-month exchange programme.
The Japanese student was found dead more than a week before he was to return home on November 30, 2019, after completing his programme at the IITG’s Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering.
(IIT-Guwahati helpline for students in collaboration with Saathi: 8486814024. Suicide prevention helpline: Sanjivini, Society for Mental Health. Telephone: 011-4076 9002, Monday-Saturday.)
