By Subhash Mishra - LUCKNOW
Published: 07th February 2014 09:32 AM
Last Updated: 07th February 2014 09:32 AM
A funereal air prevailed at the IIT Kanpur as the students and faculty struggled to come to terms with the suicide of yet another bright youngster, which brought the total number of student suicides at the premier institution in the past decade to 11.
The victim , Manjunath, who hailed from Karnataka,was found dead in his hostel room on Wednesday. A second-year student, the physically challenged lad has had to cope with personal tragedies at a very young age-- his father having expired and sister committing suicide last year. “But despite the challenges he was very studious, bright and had a very promising future,” some of his batchmates told Express over the phone on Thursday.
If the suicide were an isolated incident on the campus,it would have been viewed as a tragic interlude. But the fact that it was the latest in the spate of suicides on the campus made it that much more difficult to paper over.
The usual practice is to hold a condolence meeting after every suicide and afterwards it will be business as usual,while the issues that prompted the victim to take the extreme step remain unaddressed. The actual causes resulting in the tragedy range from stratospheric ambition to academic pressure.
Authorities, however, denied this saying that they had adopted the best measures possible to support the students. According to an official spokesman, even Manjunath’s guardian had lauded the IIT-K for extending its wholehearted support to him.
While Students welfare Dean and faculty A K Ghosh, who spoke to Express from Kanpur, attributed parental and peer pressure as the triggering factors for pushing the students over the edge, he was also critical of the reportage and said the IIT-K had put in place the best practices to help out the wards.
