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Two pre-med students die by suicide in Rajasthan: NEET

A 17-year-old student from UP was found dead at his rented accommodation in Kota late on Tuesday, June 27, within hours of another student suspected of having died by suicide, taking the number of such cases in Rajasthan’s `private coaching hub to four this month.

A domestic worker found the teenager’s body when he went to serve him dinner.

Rajasthan Police told The Hindustan Times that the student from Uttar Pradesh was preparing for the all-India pre-medical entrance test and arrived in Kota a month back. A domestic house help found the teenager’s body when he went to serve him dinner.

In 2023 alone a staggering 15 students have died by suicide in Kota. A similar number of students ended their lives in Kota in 2022.

Debasish Bharadwaj, a local police officer, said to the media that the police did not recover any note in the first case but found one in the second. “The bodies were sent for autopsy…Nobody reported any behavioural changes in them in the last few days. The investigation is underway.”

Around 225000 students are estimated to be preparing for medical and engineering entrance exams in Kota. Preparations for the hard course are stressful, often made more isolated because of distance from families.

A spiral in suicides has prompted the state government to consider a law to regulate private educational institutes to ease the academic pressure on students, especially those enrolled at coaching centres.

Just a few days back, on June 22, the Rajasthan Police set up a cell for regular interactions with students at coaching centres to deal with the problem.

The state home department in February 2023 was on record stating that, 52 students died by suicide between 2019 and 2022 while blaming “lack of confidence in students if they score fewer marks” among the reasons for them.

Six years ago, in 2017, the Kota administration made the appointment of counsellors, weekly offs, recreation days, and shuffled test schedules compulsory after the death of 17 students in 2016. A team from Tata Institute of Social Sciences was also appointed the same year to study the causes of extreme stress and depression among the students that led to suicides.

Over the past 12 years Since 2011, over 121 students have died by suicide.

Assistant police superintendent (Kota) Chandrasheel Thakur said to HT that, as the number of students at coaching centres increased after the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of suicides has also gone up. “If we look at the pattern, the suicides are reported mostly in April, May, and June. Most of the fresh students arrive in the city around that time. Many of them fail to cope. The results of exams also come in the same period…which increases the number of suicides due to failures.”

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