Suicide whiff in IIT student death - The Telegraph

Suicide whiff in IIT student death

PANKAJ SARMA

Guwahati, Sept. 18: An IIT Guwahati student was found dead near a hostel on the campus today, with the preliminary police probe suggesting suicide. The body of Ujjwal Shailabh, 24, who was from Bihar, was found face down in a pool of blood near the four-storey Brahmaputra Hostel around 11.30am by some students, said Labanu Konwar, the assistant registrar (public relations) of IIT Guwahati. The students reported the matter to the IIT authorities, who informed the police. IIT sources said Ujjwal, a final-semester student of BTech in mathematics and computing, was depressed because of poor academic performance. The police suspect the student, who stayed on the ground floor of the hostel, might have jumped from the roof. No suicide note has been found in the hostel room of Ujjwal, who hailed from Triveniganj town in Bihar's Supoul district, the police said. This is the third suspected suicide at IIT Guwahati in the past year. Tushad Yadav, a first-semester electronics and communication student, and Shoaib Ahmed, a second-semester MSc student, were found dead on the campus in September last year and March this year, respectively. While Tushad was suspected to have jumped to death, Shoaib was found hanging in his hostel room. The officer in charge of North Guwahati police station, M.M. Mahanta, said: "The preliminary investigation suggests that Ujjwal committed suicide. Students close to him have said he was depressed for some time." The IIT sources said Ujjwal's academic performance "had dipped" and he could be depressed because of that. Assistant registrar Konwar said Ujjwal's family had been informed and his relatives were expected to reach IIT Guwahati tomorrow. Ujjwal had taken admission to the IIT in 2009. The IIT sources said that since the institute was set up in 1995, "six or seven" students were suspected to have committed suicide. "We don't have the exact number of unnatural deaths," Konwar said. "All I can say is that this is the third instance in the past year." He said IIT Guwahati had four psychologists to counsel students. The institute has more than 5,500 students.