'We exchanged banter, everything seemed normal': Friend of Kota student who killed himself

A friend of one of the two students who allegedly hanged themselves at their rooms in this coaching hub said the victim showed no sign of stress when he met him the evening before.

Three students preparing for competitive exams here allegedly died by suicide in two separate incidents within 12 hours, police had said on Monday.

The district administration has now given directions to coaching institutes to ensure that they employ a psychologist and also guide students on career options other than engineering (JEE) and NEET (medical).

Ankush Anand (18), a NEET aspirant and resident of Bihar's Supaul district, and Ujjwal Kumar (17), a JEE aspirant from Gaya district, were found hanging from ceiling fans in their respective rooms of their paying guest (PG) accommodation early Monday morning.

The third victim, Pranav Verma (17), a NEET aspirant from Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district, allegedly consumed some poisonous substance in his hostel late Sunday night, police said.

Vipul Sharma, Kumar's childhood friend from Gaya, told the media outside mortuary on Tuesday that he met with the victim an evening before while he was returning after taking meal.

"I was coming from the Jawahar Nagar side and we exchanged banter. It did not seem to me that he was under any stress. Everything seemed normal," Sharma said. He also said that Kumar and Anand lived in separate rooms of the same PG accommodation and were not friends.

Anand and Kumar, both Bihar natives, were found hanging in the PG accommodation in Talwandi area under Jawahar Nagar police station, police had said.

Both of them had been preparing for their entrance exams in the same coaching institute of the city for around two years.

The police handed over the body of Anand after post-mortem at noon while parents of Kumar reached late in afternoon, following which the autopsy was carried out and the body was handed over to the family, said Amar Singh, the DSP and Circle Officer (CO) of Jawahar Nagar. The body of Verma was already handed over to his family members on Monday after post-mortem.

Initial inquiry revealed that Anand and Kumar were irregular in attending their coaching classes for quite a long time and were lagging behind in studies and that was likely to have driven them to take the extreme step.

"Anand and Kumar had been disturbed over studies for past sometime. They were not attending classes regularly and it seemed they were lagging behind in studies. Their attendance record from the institute is yet to be examined," DSP Singh said on Tuesday.

However, the parents of both of them told police that the two were good students and expressed ignorance on reports that they were irregular in attending classes or missing tests, according to a police officer who was present at the mortuary.

The family members of Anand did not level any allegation, but asserted that the boy had been distracted from studies for quite some time, he said.

The suicides prompted the district administration to swing into action on Tuesday. District Collector O P Bunkar and Kota range IG Prashan Kumar Khamesra jointly held a meeting with stakeholders from various coaching institutes on Tuesday afternoon.

The meeting was attended by SP (City), Circle Officers, Station House Officers (SHOs) of police stations, representatives of coaching institutes and hostel associations.

Interacting with the media after the meeting that lasted for more than two hours, the Kota DM said that directions were given to ensure the presence of psychologists at coaching institutes and that there should be facility of providing recordings of the lessons so that the students can listen to the missing lectures.

"Directions were also issued to coaching institutes to provide career guidance on alternative options other than IITs and NEET," the DM said.

The coaching institutes were asked to ensure strict implementation of guidelines issued by the state government and to prepare an action plan for a stress-free study environment in Kota, IG Khamesra said.

No suicide note was recovered from rooms of any of the three deceased students and the actual reason behind suicide was yet to be ascertained. However, initially, study-related stress, depression due to distraction from studies and coaching classes was believed to be the driving factor behind extreme steps by the three students.

Meanwhile, experts from Government Medical College Kota stressed that the students from coaching classes need to be trained in stress management and called for mandatory psychological screening at the time of admission.

"NEET, JEE are competitive exams and study-related stress is natural. Some of those who fail to cope with it tend to take such steps (suicide)," said Dr Chandrashekhar Sushil, Head of the Department of Psychiatric in Government Medical College Kota.

"The students need to be trained to deal with stress management through regular sessions rather than blaming or holding one another responsible. Also, psychological screening should be made compulsory at the time of admission to coaching centres," he said.

More than two lakh students from across the country are currently taking coaching for entrance exams in medical and engineering collages at various institutes in Kota and living in around 3,500 hostels and PGs.