Kolkata: A 22-year-old student of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur was found dead in an apparent case of suicide on Tuesday morning, marking the second such incident on the campus within ten days.
The deceased, identified as Soham Haldar, was a resident of the Shalbagan area in Barasat, North 24 Parganas district. He was pursuing a Master of Technology in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering and was staying at Madan Mohan Malviya Hall.
According to officials, security personnel were alerted after the room remained locked and unresponsive since morning. When they opened the door, they discovered the student hanging inside. He was immediately taken to B C Roy Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
Police said the incident is being treated as an apparent suicide at this stage. The body has been sent for post-mortem examination, and the student’s family has been informed. The institute authorities have not yet issued an official statement.
This comes close on the heels of another incident on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly jumped from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall. He was residing in Nehru Hall at the time.
With these incidents, a total of seven student deaths have been reported at IIT Kharagpur in 2025. Five of them were cases of hanging, including Shoaan Malik (January 12), Aniket Walkar (April 21), Mohammad Asif Qamar (May 4), Ritam Mandal (July 18), Chandradeep Pawar (July 22), and Harsh Kumar Pandey (September 20). On December 7, Bhattaram Sharan Kumar’s body was recovered near the Puri railway gate in Kharagpur after he was run over by a train.
With IANS inputs