Our Special Correspondent Apr 15, 2018 00:00 IST
Tribeni: Naru Gopal Maloo, the IIT-Delhi student found hanging in his hostel on Friday, often spoke of pressure to perform well in semester exams, his brother said on Saturday.
Maloo was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday after he overdosed on sleeping pills. He was discharged on Thursday.
"He would often speak of academic pressure at the IIT," his brother Bechuram who was with him during his hospital stay said while speaking to Metro from their home in Basudevpur in Hooghly's Tribeni.
"I used to counsel him. I really don't know if it was just the pressure or something else that drove him to take the extreme step."
A former student of the Presidency University, Maloo, 21, was a first-year MSc student of chemistry at the IIT.
On Saturday, Bechuram and other family members brought the body to their home from Delhi.
Maloo was the youngest of three brothers. Their father, Shyamal Maloo, used to be a vegetable vendor at a nearby market. While Bechuram is a civil engineer and lives in Delhi, his other brother is a vegetable vendor.
"He used to share his room with two others. They were not there in the room when he hanged himself possibly after midnight," Bechuram said. "We have sought the post-mortem report from the Delhi police. I will meet the cops next month."
Students struggling to cope with academic pressure at IITs is not new. Between January and April 2017, four suicides were reported at the IITs across the country.
T. R. Sreekrishnan, dean of students affairs, had said Maloo was a bright student.
"He had secured 7.2 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) in the first semester. He had been given admission on the basis of good performance in the Joint Admission Test conducted by the IITs," Sreekrishnan had said.
The dean had said there were no signs of depression in Maloo till he overdosed on sleeping pills.
The student had never visited the counselling centre on the campus, Sreekrishnan had said.
