Mita Mukherjee
A third-year B.Tech student off IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging in his room on Sunday morning marking the third incident of alleged suicide by a meritorious student at the campus in barely four months.
Mohammed Asif Qamar, a student if civil engineering department who hailed from Sheohar district of Bihar was found hanging in room number 35 of SDS block of the Madan Mohan Malviya hostel. According to sources at the institute the 22-year old student committed suicide during a video call with a Delhi-based person who alerted the institute security officer by phone.
On receiving the call at around 2.55 am on Sunday, the security officer informed the police. The local police from Hijli outpost rushed to the spot and found Qamar hanging after they broke open the door. They rushed him to a local hospital where doctors declared him dead.
The death of Qamar triggered concern among parents and students as this the third incident of suicide since January. The death of Qamar prompted the IIT authorities to set up a committee to find out the reasons behind the spate of suicides at the institute.
“The authorities had already initiated the process of setting up the panel to probe the reasons behind increase of student suicides. The committee is likely to start functioning from end of this week or from beginning of next week,” Bhargab Maitra, dean of students’ affairs told EducationWorld.
The police said prima facie reports said Qamar committed suicide but investigations were still in process to confirm the cause of the death.
On April 30 Aniket Walkar, a fourt-year student in the department of ocean engineering and Naval Architecture was found hanging in hostel room.
The body of a third-year student Shaon Malik was found in his hostel room on January 12.
