118 - 31st Aug 2011 - Student found dead inside IIT Madras campus

Student found dead inside IIT Madras campus

PTI, August 31, 2011 at 09:08


Chennai, Aug 31 (PTI) A 36-year old student of IIT Madras was found dead in a hostel room inside the institute campus here today after he allegedly consumed poison, police said.
 
Gowrishankar, the deceased, was found dead in a room in Cauvery hostel inside the IIT campus in Guindy in the city around 11.30 am, they said.
 
Family dispute is said to be the reason behind the alleged suicide, police said. The student, whose family live in Thiruvottiyur, Chennai, is reported to have consumed poison, they said.
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Student found dead inside IIT Madras campus _ Deccan Herald


Chennai, Aug 31, (PTI):
A 36-year old student of IIT Madras was found dead in a hostel room inside the institute campus here today after he allegedly consumed poison, police said.

Gowrishankar, the deceased, was found dead in a room in Cauvery hostel inside the IIT campus in Guindy in the city around 11.30 am, they said.

Family dispute is said to be the reason behind the alleged suicide, police said. The student, whose family live in Thiruvottiyur, Chennai, is reported to have consumed poison, they said.
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Student found dead inside IIT Madras campus


August 31, 2011 at 09:08 

Chennai, Aug 31 (PTI) A 36-year old student of IIT Madras was found dead in a hostel room inside the institute campus here today after he allegedly consumed poison, police said.
Gowrishankar, the deceased, was found dead in a room in Cauvery hostel inside the IIT campus in Guindy in the city around 11.30 am, they said.
Family dispute is said to be the reason behind the alleged suicide, police said. The student, whose family live in Thiruvottiyur, Chennai, is reported to have consumed poison, they said.
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IIT-M student found dead in hostel- Times of India
A Selvaraj & M Ramya, TNN Sep 1, 2011, 03.45am IST



CHENNAI: A second-year postgraduate student at IIT-Madras was found dead inside his hostel room on Wednesday.

B Gowri Sankar, a 36-year-old MTech mechanical engineering student, was an employee of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bangalore. Police said there was no suicide note.

"We have sent his laptop to the cyber crime department to see if it contains any documents that could give us clues as to why he committed suicide," a police officer said.


This is the third suicide in the past six months at IIT-M. In February, V Anoop, an MTech mechanical engineering student, committed suicide, and in May, L Nitin Kumar Reddy, another MTech mechanical engineering student, hung himself.

Police said Sankar was a senior engineer at HAL and the company had sponsored his studies at the IIT. He joined the institute on August 8, 2010 and was staying in Cauvery hostel on the campus. Sankar's wife Geetha was trying to reach him on his mobile phone on Wednesday morning and as he did not answer despite repeated attempts, she asked his friend Krishnamurthy, also an MTech student at IIT-M, to check on him.

Geetha and his two sons live at a house in Bangalore. Police said Krishnamurthy went to Sankar's room around 12.30pm and found the door unlocked. He found Sankar lying on his bed with froth at his mouth. He informed the hostel warden and the security officer, who alerted the police. Police inspector B Jaisankar sent the body to the government hospital in Royapettah for postmortem.

Police said Sankar stayed in the room allotted by the college. "He has been doing well academically. We can rule out health problems because not a single report has been filed with the institute hospital in his name," said V G Idichandy, director in-charge at IIT-M.

One of the professors who handled several courses said Sankar was scheduled to leave for Bangalore on Wednesday morning. "He did well in the last semester and didn't seem to be under any stress. He had spoken to his friends in other hostels last evening and they did not notice anything out of the ordinary. He was regular to class and hadn't taken a day off in the last six months," the professor said.

SUICIDES AT IIT-M

October 2008 – Sankar Perumal, MTech mechanical engineering student

May 12, 2010 – R Sandeep, MTech electrical engineering student

February 24, 2011 – V Anoop, MTech mechanical engineering student

May 4, 2011 – L Nitin Kumar Reddy, MTech mechanical engineering student

Aug 31, 2011 – B Gowri Sankar, MTech mechanical engineering student

102 - 27th Feb 2011 - Suicide at IIT sparks debate over stress-Deccan Chronicle

Feb. 26: The suicide of Anup Valaparla of Hyderabad in his hostel room on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, Wednesday night has once again triggered a heated debate among academicians, psychiatrists and the student community on whether the higher education system in the country is putting too much pressure on students driving some of them to end their lives.

According to IIT-M deputy director Prof V.G.Idichandy, the percentage of dejected students has come down and no case of student suicide was reported last year. “We have a full-fledged counselling centre where several students are counselled by a professionals on a daily basis. It is not like all students want to commit suicide. Some of them approach the counsellors for advice,” Prof. Idichandy said.

Speaking about Valaparla, the deputy director pointed out he had withdrawn his project thesis twice which shows he was not confident about his studies. “We allowed him to complete his 5-year course in seven years but he failed to do so. He did not approach us for help,” he said.

Some students in the IIT hostel told this correspondent that Valaparla had no friends in the institute as all his batch-mates had graduated two years ago. “He does not speak to us as he thought we will make fun of him. We could have helped him overcome his problems if he interacted with us,” a BTech student from the same hostel said on condition of anonymity.

IIT and other educational institutions also have counselling centres manned by trained personnel who help students with problems. Prof. Santhakumar of aerospace engineering in IIT-M pointed out it was impossible for the institute to monitor each of the over 6,000 students on the
campus.