IIT Kharagpur assures students of 'adequate steps' following engineering student's death

After a third-year mechanical engineering student died unexpectedly on campus, IIT Kharagpur promised to protest students that “appropriate efforts” would be done to allay their worries. On October 14, Faizan Ahmed, a 23-year-old from Tinsukia, Assam, was discovered dead in his room.

From Friday evening to early Saturday morning, hundreds of students participated in an open house discussion with Director V K Tewari while wearing black ribbons to honour Ahmed’s passing. A spokeswoman for the institute stated on Sunday that there were discussions about the student’s mental health problems. While calling Ahmed’s death incredibly “sad and terrible,” the director assured the students that “appropriate steps” would be taken internally to address their concerns. Following the event, the institute’s dean of student affairs, Dhrubajyoti Sen, offered his resignation to the administrators on October 19, but it has not yet been accepted, according to the spokeswoman.

According to a third-year electrical engineering student who participated in the discussion, students claimed that the administration committed a number of errors, including failing to immediately notify the student’s parents about the incident and allowing only students to transport the body from the hostel to the hospital. “After seven days of quiet, the director consented to address the general body of the institute and answer our questions regarding the lackadaisical handling of the tragedy,” a representative for “Scholars’ Avenue,” the student-run school publication, stated. The institute asserted that no foul play was suspected and stated it was looking into the circumstances leading to the death, contrary to Ahmed’s mother’s claims that he could not have died by suicide and her demands for a thorough inquiry.

According to Tamal Nath, the institute’s registrar, two non-governmental organisations have been contracted by the school to offer counselling to students who have been affected by the incident. This was the second death of an IIT student in the nation in the previous week. On October 10, a 20-year-old IIT Guwahati BTech student was discovered hanging in his room.