On Tuesday (13th February), Rajasthan Police said that a 16-year-old student preparing for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) had allegedly committed suicide in Kota, Rajasthan. The JEE aspirant decided to end his life after scoring less marks in the preparatory exams. This is the third student suicide case reported from Kota this year.
Bhawani Singh, Kota’s deputy superintendent of police (DSP), stated the student from Chhattisgarh took the drastic step at his hostel room in Kota’s Mahaveer Nagar area, HindustanTimes reported.
“The incident probably occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on Tuesday. When he did not answer his parents’ calls in the morning, they contacted the hostel warden, who later found his body,” Singh said.
DSP Singh said that the deceased student had been studying in Kota for the last two years adding that the student took the extreme step a day after his result came in which he had scored less marks.
Police stated no suicide note was found at the scene and that the boy’s parents were told of his death. “The body has been sent for an autopsy,” DSP Bhawani Singh confirmed.
The police are also probing why the hostel did not install the anti-suicide device that is spring-loaded fans as per the district administration’s guidelines.
Meanwhile, additional district magistrate Bhagwat Rathore said that an inquiry into the hostel administration will begin after the police submit a report on the breach of guidelines to the district collector.
Kota student suicides
It is worth noting that in recent months, several cases of student suicides have been reported in Rajasthan’s Kota, the hub of coaching centres in the country. On January 23, a 19-year-old student Mohammad Zaid from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room at Kanchan Residency in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar. Days after the incident, the hostel where the student committed suicide was seized after it was found that the hostel lacked ‘anti-suicide devices’ in ceiling fans.
On February 2, it was reported that a 27-year-old student pursuing the final year of an online BTech course in Chennai was found deceased in an apparent suicide in a rented room located in the town’s Vigyan Nagar area. The student hailing from Uttar Pradesh was found hanging from the ceiling fan in his rented room.
Earlier this year, an 18-year-old girl from Kota’s Borkheda was found hanged in her room. According to authorities, the deceased was living with her father, who worked in a bank and was retaking Class 12. The girl was under a lot of pressure due to the competitive exams.
In 2023, 26 student suicides were reported in Kota. Notably, Kota is a hub where students from all across the country come to prepare for competitive tests such as the National Entrance Exam (JEE) for admission to top engineering colleges.
Anti-suicide device
In August last year, the Kota district administration issued an order requiring all hostels and paying guest (PG) accommodations to install spring-loaded ceiling fans in every room “to provide students mental support and security”. These spring-loaded fans work as an ‘anti-suicide device’ since as soon as the weight on the fan exceeds 20 kg, the fan comes down with the spring, thus preventing the person from ending their life.
