JOIN USThe fourth year Mechanical Engineering student Dhirendra Kumar, who had consumed some poisonous substance on Sunday evening, had been admitted to a private nursing home where his condition was stated to be stable, IIT-K spokesman Ravi Shukla told Deccan Herald from Kanpur.
“The reason behind the suicide attempt is yet to be ascertained,” he said adding that it appeared to be “personal”. He added that a four-member committee had been formed to look into the incident and submit a report within three days.
Kumar hails from the neighbouring Kanpur Dehat district.
An IIT-K official admitted that despite their best efforts, they were unable to control the stress levels of the students. IIT-K has been rocked by a spate of suicides in the past few years forcing the authorities to start “counselling” of the students on the lines of universities in the USA by forming teams of counsellors, psychologists and doctors.
The institute has also set up a health centre and started an orientation programme for mental counselling. IIT-K has 3,800 students comprising 2,300 of graduate courses and 1,500 of post-graduate courses.
As many as seven students of IIT-K had committed suicide within a span of three years. While five of the seven suicides were committed after the students failed to make the grades, two others were owing to personal reasons.
A group of ex-IIT students has questioned the grading system of the institute. “The institute has a system of getting feedback forms filled by the students. We had sought to know whether any action had been taken against any teacher, who got poor grading by the students,” Omendra, chief of the group asked.