COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on everybody's mental health. People are still in fear of contracting the virus, which has infected millions and killed thousands. But in a shocking incident in Bengaluru, a 24-year-old MTech scholar in Bengaluru's Indian Institute of Science (IISc) died by suicide after he was depressed over developing COVID-like symptoms.
Sandeep Kumar, a native of Chattisgarh, was pursuing MTech at the Department of Computational and Data Sciences. The IISc security guards were asked to check up on Kumar at his hostel room on Tuesday morning, which is when the incident came to light. The guards had to break the hostel room to find Kumar's body hanging from the ceiling fan.
Depressed over COVID-like symptoms
According to the police, Kumar had emailed his friend in Chattisgarh about his COVID-like symptoms, fever and cough. He had even mentioned in his email that he'd take away his life. Upon receiving the email, Kumar's friend notified IISc staff and informed about the email.
Kumar's body was shifted to MS Ramaiah Hospital for postmortem. His swab test sample has been taken and it is yet to ascertain whether he had COVID or not, Bangalore Mirror reported.
"The mental wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff is of serious concern to us and we have provided facilities and wellness resources which include 24x7 emergency call service for anyone needing to talk to a mental health professional, 24x7 online counselling and support, One-on-one counselling with counsellors and psychiatrists on campus and other Resources and links hosted by IISc's Wellness Centre," IISc said in a statement in view of the incident.
