IIT Madras student hangs self after failing to clear GATE

An IIT Madras student was found hanging in his hostel room late on Monday night with police saying it appeared to be a case of suicide.

An IIT Madras student was found hanging in his hostel room late on Monday night with police saying it appeared to be a case of suicide.

Nagendra Kumar Reddy, who was pursuing a master’s degree at IIT Madras, was depressed after failing to clear the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) to study abroad.(ap file photo)

Sources said Nagendra Kumar Reddy, who was pursuing a master’s degree at the institute, was depressed after failing to clear the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) to study abroad.

Residents of the hostel discovered his body suspended from a ceiling fan hours after he returned from a visit to his home in Andhra Pradesh during Vinayak Chaturthi celebrations.

Police officials said no suicide note was found but they did not suspect any foul play. The body would be handed over to the student’s family following an autopsy, they said.

The incident comes a week after a student at IIT Guwahati reportedly committed suicide while an IIT Bombay scholar allegedly took his own life in May.

“IIT Madras is deeply saddened to report the death of student on its campus on 21 September 2015,” institute director B Ramamurthi said in a press statement. “The student has been identified as an MTech scholar from Andhra Pradesh. The police is investigating the death and the institute is cooperating with the police in its investigation. At this time, we have no indication of the reason for death. The student’s parents have been notified. The institute offers its deepest condolences to the parents for the unfortunate and devastating loss.”

Sources said hours before his death, Nagendra called up his family in Andhra and told them he had reached Chennai safely.

Engineering remains a preferred career of choice for parents figuring out what they’d like their children to do, while the Indian Institutes of Technology, or IITs, are regarded as the premier schools of technical education in the country.

But experts say many students who make it to these prestigious institutes have trouble coping with examination stress, pressures of finding proper recruitment and sky-high expectations of their families.