ALAPPUZHA: Parents of N. Nidhin, 22, the IIT Kharagpur student found hanging in his hostel room Friday, demand an efficient system to ensure the mental health on the campus. It was the third suicide on this campus this year. Last month, an electrical engineering student ended life on a railway track. A shell-shocked Nazer, the SBI Oachira branch manager, and Nadi, a revenue employee, who spoke to DC on Tuesday, believe they were victims of the institutional pressure. “They're under tremendous pressure to keep standards. I don’t believe in the theory of depression," he says. He was a final semester student of aerospace engineering whose classes were almost over, and exams started.
"He did not attend an internal exam on Friday. The reason is still unknown. But I don’t see any external hands. His suicide note narrates how to treat his body and how to switch off the snooze mode on his computer with a password," he said. "Maybe a moment of feeling had made him think of it, perhaps a feeling of guilt over recent exams. He had a single room with no second person to avert it. So I urge the authorities to set up a panel to study revamping the system." The 10,000-strong campus has no adequate mental health care mechanism to handle depressed students.
"I spoke to one of the counsellors on the campus. He told me they would help only those who approach them. There should be a proper way to identify depressed students as they would not open up. Otherwise, the deaths will continue," he said. When he reached home last time, in December, they went on a holiday to Dubai. All the time he was thoroughly enjoying, they recall. He was always talking about higher studies as he noticed many innovations in this field. "We heard of HRD ministry enquiring into these incidents, and the police has registered a case. We are awaiting the investigation reports," he said. They also allege disrespect to his body by the campus authorities. "They kept the body for 30 hours in a dingy room without a proper freezing facility," he said.
