A 20-year-old Muslim student who was preparing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test died by suicide in Rajasthan’s Kota on Wednesday. This marks the 26th student suicide in Kota this year. Kota hosts numerous coaching classes for entrance exams and draws in hundreds of thousands of students annually.
The student, Mohammad Tanveer, hailing from Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh, had been residing in Kota with his father and sister.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), student suicides have surged by a shocking 70 percent over the past decade in India. As per the NCRB, it was reported that in 2021, students comprised 8 percent of the total suicides in the country, accounting for 13,089 victims while in 2011, it was 5.7 percent. From 2011 onwards, there has been a consistent annual rise in the occurrence of student suicides in India.
Earlier this month, a 17-year-old student, Priyam Singh, reportedly consumed poison at a coaching institute, resulting in her demise. Priyam Singh, originally from Mau, Uttar Pradesh, had been residing in Kota for a year, diligently preparing for the medical entrance exam.
In the month of August this year, two medical aspirants died by suicide, both in their teens, taking this year’s student suicide count to 23 at the coaching hub. Among them, one was a 17-year-old aspirant, who jumped from the sixth floor of a coaching institute. Later that evening, an 18-year-old student from Bihar, who was also preparing for the medical entrance exam, was found hanging in his hostel room.
The statistics for student suicides in Kota were as follows: 17 in 2015, 16 in 2016, seven in 2017, 20 in 2018, and eight in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic when many students left the city due to lockdowns, the numbers dropped to four and none, respectively. However, in 2022, there was an increase, with 15 reported cases, said the Kota police. The administration made it compulsory to install spring-loaded fans in hostels to prevent the students from ‘hanging themselves.”
