IIT Madras student found hanging in her hostel room

Guwahati: A lady research scholar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras was found hanging in her hostel room on late Tuesday. The research scholar is a 25-year-old woman and hails from Jharkhand. Police confirmed the same on Wednesday.

As identified by the police, the dead research scholar is Rajana Kumari who had joined IIT Madras in 2017.

Kotturpuram Police stated, “Ranjana Kumari was doing Ph.D. in metallurgy and materials engineering. When her parents tried to contact her through mobile, it was kept in switch off mode since Sunday. Therefore, they informed Ranjana Kumari’s friends to identify her. When they looked into Kumari’s room, she was found hanging.”

Although the body of the research scholar was found hanging in her hostel room on January 1, her parents report that her mobile had been in switch off mode since Sunday, i.e., December 31. When her parents contacted her hostel, her friends discovered her hanging in her room. They also said that Ranjana did not come out of her hostel room to join others for the December 31 celebrations.

Notably, before Ranjana, another student of oceanography from Kerala who was in the final year was also found hanging in his room at IIT Madras. This was an incident of September last year.

An inquiry officer states, “We have registered a case over this suicide and launched a probe to know the reason for Ranjana’s suicide. As far we have enquired, no one has said that Ranjana was in distress.”

A similar instance of an IIT girl committing suicide was also reported from IIT Guwahati in September last year. Nagashree Aithal, a student in IIT Guwahati had allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself in her hostel room. Aithal had come to study in this technological institute from Karnataka and was enrolled in B.Tech 1st year, Mechanical Engineering.

With such incidents of meritorious students opting for the ultimate path of committing suicide, this has been a major issue of the society now. This is high time that the mental and social status of the students enrolled in such high-profile institutes should be thoroughly monitored and consulted so that no one gets to suffer from depression or any other stress and choose such a fatal path.

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