Rajasthan's Kota district, India's coaching hub for IIT and NEET exams, has recorded three student suicides in 48 hours, sending shockwaves in the entire student community in the city.
A 17-year-old engineering aspirant, Jitesh Gupta, from Bihar's Siwan district was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his hostel room on Tuesday morning in Kota's Mahavir Nagar area. Jitesh had been coaching to crack India's premier engineering entrance exam, IIT-JEE, for last three years.
The incident came to light after Jitesh' parents called one his parents when their son did not receive the phone call.
"On receiving the call from Jitesh's parents, his friend peeped through the room and found his dead body hanging from the ceiling fan," a police official told The Times of India.
The police said that the post-mortem of Jitesh's body will be carried out after his parents arrive in the city on Wednesday.
On Sunday, two students had also committed suicide in separate incidents. Deeksha Singh, 17, who was studying to crack NEET exams from Uttar Pradesh, had hanged herself from the ceiling fan in her hostel room.
Another student named Deepak Dadich, an IIT aspirant from Rajasthan's Bundi district, had hanged himself in the upper storey room of his hostel.
The police said that 19 students have comitted suicide since January.
Although the cases of student suicides have shown an alarming increase over the past few years, the enormous number of coaching institutes are sprawling in the Kota town. The existing coaching institutes have also expanded their infrastructure and are admitting more students now.
"Although there are students from all over the country who are studying for medical and engineering entrance exams in Kota, there is no room for entertainment or other leisure activities which puts a lot of stress on the young aspirants," Mohit Singh, who left Kota after several failed attempts to crack IIT-JEE exams told International Business Times, India.
"To add to that, the Indian parents do push their children to excel in these exams which also becomes detrimental to their growth and may be the reason behind the growing suicides," he added.
