Rajasthan: Three students, preparing for entrance exams, allegedly die by suicide in Kota; probe underway

Three students preparing for competitive entrance exams in Rajasthan’s Kota allegedly died by suicide on Monday. The bodies of the students, aged 16, 17 and 18, have been kept in mortuary while police have started an investigation into the incident. 

Two of the deceased students were from Bihar while the third was from Madhya Pradesh. Ankush and Ujjwal - hailing from Bihar - were preparing for engineering and medical entrance tests and stayed in adjacent rooms of the same hostel. Pravan, who hailed from MP, was preparing for NEET, a pre-medical entrance test. The police have not found any suicide notes till now. 

Unconfirmed media reports said that the third student, Pranav Verma, died by suicide after consuming poison.   

“Pranav had dinner on Sunday evening and then he went to his room. He also spoke with his family on Sunday night. When a child woke up to fill the water at night, he saw Pranav unconscious in the verandah. The child immediately informed the hostel operator. The hostel operator and others took him to the hospital, where doctors declared him dead upon arrival,” according to the police as quoted by Times Now. 

Ankush Anand and Ujjwal Kumar had been preparing for their entrance exams in the same coaching institute of the city for around two years, DSP and CO Jawahar Nagar area Amar Singh said.

When they did not open door of their rooms till around 11 am on Monday morning, other students inquired and informed the caretaker of the PG, who reported the matter to the police, the CO said.

The police rushed to the PG and broke open the doors of the two rooms, and found the boys hanging from the ceiling fans, the officer said.

The duo were likely to have committed suicide either early in the morning or intervening night of Sunday and Monday, however, exact time could be ascertained only after the postmortem, he said.

Initial inquiry revealed that both were irregular in attending their coaching classes for quite a long time and were out of track of the studies and that was likely to have driven them to study stress and to take the extreme step, the senior officer said. However, no suicide notes were recovered from their rooms, he added.

Ujjwal Kumar's sister has also been taking coaching in Kota and living in girl's hostel in the same area, police said.

While Madhya Pradesh's Pranav Verma was found lying unconscious in the gallery of his hostel on late Sunday night at around 12 am, Circle Inspector at Kunhari police station Ganga Sahay Sharma said.

The teenager was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared brought dead, he added.

The deceased had been taking coaching for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) NEET -- a pre-medical entrance test, for the last two years, police said. The body was handed over to his family members after the postmortem, they said.

Kota, known as India’s coaching hub where lakhs of students seek preparatory training for competitive exams, has witnessed an alarming spike in suicide incidents over the past few years. These deaths have often revolved around the pressure under which students are to perform and qualify for the best colleges.

In 2016, a student had jumped to death despite having cleared the highly coveted IIT-JEE exam. Before taking the extreme step, she had called for all coaching centres in the Rajasthan city to be closed. 

In 2019, the Rajasthan government constituted a state-level committee to prepare a legislative draft for regulation of coaching centres to reduce stress among those studying at such institutes. There has been no public information on the draft yet.

(If you are having suicidal thoughts, or are worried about a friend or need emotional support, someone is always there to listen. Call Sneha Foundation - 04424640050 (available 24x7) or iCall, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences' helpline - 02225521111, which is available Monday to Saturday from 8 am to 10 pm.)