Faculty members probe cause for student’s suicide

Chennai: The door of room no. 601 of Tamraparani hostel on IIT-M campus remained closed on  Monday morning. It didn't open at lunch hour either.

Only in the evening  N. Nagendra Kumar's friends sensed that something was amiss. At 9 p.m. the door was finally forced open.“When he didn't respond to our knocks,  we had to break the door," said a professor, who was with Kumar's friends at the hostel on Monday. "It was dark inside. Then we found his body hanging from a fan.”

Friends and teaching staff are in a state of shock. None of them would buy the theory that the 23-year-old M. Tech student killed himself because he failed in an exam.

According to professor and head of civil engineering department,  A. Meher Prasad, Kumar was doing well in  M.tech in civil engineering sponsored by L& T manufacturing company. "He was getting '12,000 per month and had bagged a job in the same company with a starting salary of Rs 40,000. He was selected through a national examination ‘Build India Scholarship," he said, adding that he had joined the campus last year.

“On Friday, he went home for Vinayaka Chathurthi. He returned on Monday. Today, I was told that he died yesterday,” he said. When asked whether there was any suicide note, he said there was none.

Faculty members said Kumar showed no sign of depression or anxiety. “If academics was a problem, we would have been able to trace it and take corrective steps. If we find such things we ask the parents to spend time with the students. In this case, we are still probing as to what really went wrong,” said Prasad.

Another professor, requesting anonymity, who was present when the body was found, said the reason for committing suicide must be something else and not academics. Academically he did quite well. He got 6.7 percentile, which is very good in IIT standard.

Chandan Biswas,  one of his hostel mates, said he was an introvert and did not speak much with anyone. “ We didn't know much about him. But I heard that his parents are financially not that strong and his father is a farmer.” Hostel guard Abzhar Ali said Kumar would call him ‘dost’ because he understood little Hindi. “He happily spoke to me, but I heard he never spoke much with others.”