Bengal student 'suicide' at IIT - Telegraph India

Bengal student 'suicide' at IIT

Kishore Talukdar and Avishek Sengupta

Borjhar (Guwahati), April 30: An IIT Guwahati student from Bengal was found hanging in his hostel room last night, the suspected exam-eve suicide leaving institute officials troubled over why someone with a "very good" academic performance would kill himself. Sarkar Intekhab Alam, described as "brilliant" by the IIT's director, was a second-semester student of MSc in physics. Police said the 22-year-old from Murshidabad left behind a "suicide note written in Bengali on the wall" that blamed no one for his death. Alam, who would have appeared for semester exams today, was found by his hostel mates hanging from the ceiling fan of his room in the institute's Umiam Hostel around 10 last night. "He was okay till last evening. He went to his room for a nap and asked his roommates to call him before dinner, which is generally served around 10pm. When his friends went to call him, they found him in that condition," said Labanu Konwar, the tech school's PRO. IIT sources said the door to his room was unlocked. Alam was rushed to the Guwahati Neurological Research Centre where he was declared dead on arrival. Police and forensic officials arrived at the hostel around noon today. "We saw a suicide note written in Bengali on the wall of the deceased's room," said Rana Bhuyan, in charge of Amingaon police station. The IIT's director, Gautam Biswas, said Alam was a "brilliant" student. "His cumulative performance index was above 7.5 (out of 10), which is very good. He did not have to take any pressure for this exam. We are troubled by his demise. We have teams of faculty, professional and student counsellors. All of them do routine checks and counselling sessions." Bornali Das, psychosocial consultant at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, said the more brilliant a student is, the higher the social pressure. "They tend to internalise this pressure and the depression grows within them." Alam's body was flown to Calcutta tonight after two of his relatives reached Guwahati. During last year's semester exams, Ujjwal Shailabh, a 24-year-old from Bihar, had allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the four-storey hostel.