Student found dead in mysterious circumstances in IIT Kharagpur, 2nd death in 4 days

Kolkata: A second-year electrical engineering student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur was found dead on the campus under mysterious circumstances.

The student, identified as Chandradip Pawar, was found dead on Monday night.

This is the second incident of an in-campus death of a student of the institute during the last four days.

On July 18, the body of Ritam Mondal, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, was discovered under mysterious circumstances in his hostel room.

As intimated by the institute authorities to the local police, after having his dinner on Monday night, the deceased student consumed some medicine as per the doctor’s advice. The tablet that he consumed, according to the local police sources, somehow got stuck in his trachea or windpipe, which ultimately resulted in his death.

Pawar, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, was transferred to a hospital within the IIT Kharagpur campus. However, the doctors there declared him dead. The body of the deceased student has been sent for post-mortem purposes, and the real reason behind his death will be known only after the autopsy report is available.

The local police have started an investigation into the matter. The family members of the deceased student were informed on Monday night only, and they reached Kharagpur on Tuesday morning.

An insider from the institute said there were visible symptoms of Pawar suffering from some sort of mental pressure during the last few days, and hence, some confusion has started surfacing over his death.

This is the fifth case of in-campus unnatural death at IIT-Kharagpur, with the cases of Pawar on Monday and Ritam Mondal on July 18 being the latest two.

On January 12, Shaon Malik, a third-year electrical engineering student, died by suicide.

On April 20, Aniket Walker, a final-year Ocean Engineering student from Maharashtra, was found hanging in JC Bose Hall.

On May 4, Mohammad Asif Qamar, a third-year B. Tech student from Bihar, was found dead in his room at Madan Mohan Malviya Hall.

IANS