Multiple student suicides have been reported from the IIT-Kharagpur campus since January, this year.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

 

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur campus has decided to take steps to strengthen and start a committee to enhance student well-being as multiple student suicides in the campus since January and several others were reported last year.

IIT Kharagpur is set to form a 10-member campus committee comprising expert psychologists, legal and police professionals, educationists, counsellors, and alumni to focus on students’ mental health and address the issue of rising death by suicides.

“The committee will assess the factors [primary, secondary or tertiary] that are affecting the mental health and well-being of students, faculty and staff of the institute. The committee will also identify the key challenges,” an official release from IIT Kharagpur stated on Saturday (May 10, 2025).

The committee will assess the current workings of the institute and offer their expert recommendations after taking stalk of the situation. They have promised to take this opportunity to “bolster the mental health eco-system of students” and others inside the campus.

The members will speak to all stakeholders on campus to draw up a report within the next three months to help better the ecosystem on campus and suggest preventive measures to avoid similar tragic incidents in the future.

On Thursday, May 8, the institute also said that they have decided to file a First Information Report (FIR) for every student death on campus. “IIT Kharagpur has already lodged the FIRs in respective student cases,” sources said.

This comes after, on May 6, the Supreme Court of India asked if an FIR had been registered in the Qamar case and called for a report.

Series of deaths 

On May 4, Mohammad Asif Qamar (22), a third-year B.Tech student and native of Bihar was found dead in his hostel room in Madan Mohan Malviya Hall of Residence. His death was suspected to be a case of death by suicide. 

A final year student of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Aniket Walker (22) from Maharashtra was found dead in his hostel room in J.C. Bose Hall of Residence on April 20. An official had said that after preliminary examinations suggested the possibility of suicide.

The first incident this year was when a young 21-year-old Shaon Malik tragically passed away on January 12. He was a third-year student of electrical engineering and died by suicide. His parents discovered his body the next day when they came to pay him a visit.

(People in distress or having suicidal thoughts can seek counselling by calling the suicide prevention helpline number: DISHA – 0471-2552056, 1056)