A 19-year-old first-year undergraduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) allegedly committed suicide in her hostel room on November 8 in Chennai. The reason behind the suicide remains undetermined. Neither did the police didn’t recover any suicide note from her room.

Police suspect the student was depressed due to poor performance in examinations and believe, she took the step because of this reason. The police told, “The student, a native of Kerala, was pursuing the integrated MA programme at the institute.” 

As per a statement from IIT Madras, “It is with deep grief and sadness that IIT Madras has to inform the passing away of a first-year undergraduate student of Humanities and Social Sciences Department, last night (November 8). IIT Madras faculty, staff and students extend their deepest condolences to the family, friends and other near and dear ones of the deceased student. This is indeed an irreparable loss to the institute and the family. May her soul rest in peace.”

Although the student’s father told The New Indian Express, “After reading the message and browsing her phone further, we were able to gather the information that my daughter was under constant harassment by one of her professors, who has hurt her dignity and it is the sole reason for her untimely death.”

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This is the fifth suicide at IIT Madras in the last one year. A final-year Ocean Engineering student from Kerala’s Palakkad had committed suicide in September this year while a first-year M Tech student committed suicide in his room back in January.

A few weeks ago, a 20-year-old B.Tech student of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad allegedly jumped off the hostel building on the campus on Tuesday, October 29 due to depression. A third year computer science and engineering student, Pichikala Siddarth, who hails from the city, jumped off from the third floor of the hostel building at around 3.25 am. The security staff and some students who noticed it rushed him to a private hospital. Later he was shifted to a corporate hospital where he died without responding to treatment, Sangareddy district Deputy Superintendent of Police P Sridhar Reddy said.

Source: India Today