- HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Updated: Oct 29, 2015 15:47 IST
More than 1,00,000 teenagers head to coaching institutes in Kota every year with the dream of cracking IIT or medical exams. (AH Zaidi/HT Photo)
A 15-year-old IIT-JEE aspirant allegedly committed suicide in Kota, police said on Wednesday, the third student to end his life in the Rajasthan city famous for its coaching institutes.
Police said that the body of Vikas Kumar Meena was found hanging in his hostel room in the Talwandi area by his grandfather who had rushed here from Bhilwara after calls to his mobile phone went unanswered since Tuesday.
SS Godara, the Kota superintendent of police, said that a three-page suicide note has been recovered from the room of the student in which he has cited domestic problems and his unwillingness to pursue engineering as the reason for suicide.
“The student has mentioned about the death of his mother in the past, about the remarriage of his father and his grandfather and father’s prodding him for pursuing engineering studies due to which he was upset,” he said.
The student, hailing from Chandadand village of Bhilwara district and studying in class 10, have joined a coaching institute last year and was preparing for IIT-JEE.
The father of the deceased is an armyman and posted in Manipur.
Lakhmaram, the student’s grandfather, said the boy had no study stress and was upset since the death of his mother in 2006 and also the accidental death of his cousin few years ago.
The coaching institute’s authorities said that Vikas was an average student.
Earlier this month, two other students, both pursuing coaching classes, had allegedly committed suicide in the city, underlining a growing trend which experts attribute to performance pressure on youngsters.
Every year, more than 1.5 lakh student from across the country enroll in the 40-odd coaching institutes to prepare for the highly-competitive entrance examinations for different professional coaches.
National Crime Records Bureau data show that 45 students committed suicide in Kota in 2014, a rise of more than 61 per cent from 2013, though some of the cases are also said to be due to failed affairs and other reasons.
Recently, several coaching institutes jointly launched a round-the-clock helpline to offer counselling, track callers suffering from depression and provide assistance.
