CHARU SUDAN KASTURI
New Delhi, Oct. 13: A brilliant student of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi was found dead on railway tracks in the capital on Sunday morning with a suicide note.
Deepak Kumar Gupta, 25, was a second-year M.Tech student at the institute. He had consistently performed brilliantly at the IIT, but was suffering from depression of late, sources said.
IIT Delhi dean Anurag Sharma confirmed the death. “It is a sad incident, especially for the family of the student,” Sharma said.
The incident was “almost certainly” a suicide, police sources said. “The boy’s parents have verified the handwriting on the suicide note,” an official said. The boy’s parents — his father works at Bhilai Steel Plant — arrived in Delhi yesterday to cremate their son, the official said.
Suicides at the IITs are not new — earlier this year, a girl at IIT Kanpur killed herself — but students and Deepak’s hostel mates said they were more shocked because the boy was academically brilliant.
“Many students, including some of us who in our weak moments have contemplated ending our lives, are unable to cope with the academic pressures that IITs impose,” a student at the Delhi institute said.
Deepak, a resident of the newly built Zanskar hostel, had, however, managed to score consistently well during his one year at the institute. His scores — a CGPA of 8.0 in the first semester, and 8.67 in the second semester — had placed him among ‘A’ grade students in his course.
In the note, Deepak mentioned he was about to appear for the GRE — to study abroad after his M.Tech. — and said he was afraid of performing poorly in that exam, the sources said.
Deepak’s pre-IIT academic record is impressive, too. He was a gold medallist in his undergraduate BE at the Bhilai Institute of Technology.
He obtained an all-India rank of 129 in the Graduate Aptitude Test of Engineering in 2007 to gain admission to the IIT. In between his graduation and postgraduation, he worked for two years and 10 months with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India as a scientific officer.
In a resume he had posted on the institute’s local area network (LAN) server, a statement marked ‘OBJECTIVE’ says: “I would like to take pride in all my achievements and stretch myself beyond all my limits, and to create (a) special identity by being innovative in my approach and being extraordinary in my application.”
New Delhi, Oct. 13: A brilliant student of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi was found dead on railway tracks in the capital on Sunday morning with a suicide note.
Deepak Kumar Gupta, 25, was a second-year M.Tech student at the institute. He had consistently performed brilliantly at the IIT, but was suffering from depression of late, sources said.
IIT Delhi dean Anurag Sharma confirmed the death. “It is a sad incident, especially for the family of the student,” Sharma said.
The incident was “almost certainly” a suicide, police sources said. “The boy’s parents have verified the handwriting on the suicide note,” an official said. The boy’s parents — his father works at Bhilai Steel Plant — arrived in Delhi yesterday to cremate their son, the official said.
Suicides at the IITs are not new — earlier this year, a girl at IIT Kanpur killed herself — but students and Deepak’s hostel mates said they were more shocked because the boy was academically brilliant.
“Many students, including some of us who in our weak moments have contemplated ending our lives, are unable to cope with the academic pressures that IITs impose,” a student at the Delhi institute said.
Deepak, a resident of the newly built Zanskar hostel, had, however, managed to score consistently well during his one year at the institute. His scores — a CGPA of 8.0 in the first semester, and 8.67 in the second semester — had placed him among ‘A’ grade students in his course.
In the note, Deepak mentioned he was about to appear for the GRE — to study abroad after his M.Tech. — and said he was afraid of performing poorly in that exam, the sources said.
Deepak’s pre-IIT academic record is impressive, too. He was a gold medallist in his undergraduate BE at the Bhilai Institute of Technology.
He obtained an all-India rank of 129 in the Graduate Aptitude Test of Engineering in 2007 to gain admission to the IIT. In between his graduation and postgraduation, he worked for two years and 10 months with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India as a scientific officer.
In a resume he had posted on the institute’s local area network (LAN) server, a statement marked ‘OBJECTIVE’ says: “I would like to take pride in all my achievements and stretch myself beyond all my limits, and to create (a) special identity by being innovative in my approach and being extraordinary in my application.”
