Information obtained through a Right to Information (RTI) request filed by Dheeraj Singh, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group, has revealed that at least 115 students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) have died by suicide since 2005. Among these, 98 deaths occurred on campus, with 56 being by hanging, while 17 were off campus.
According to the data, from 2005 to 2024, IIT Madras had the highest number of recorded deaths at 26, followed by 18 at IIT Kanpur, 13 at IIT Kharagpur, and 10 at IIT Bombay. Five deaths have been recorded this year.
Singh filed an RTI application after the passing of Darshan Solanki, an IIT Bombay student on February 12, 2023. The application sought data regarding the deaths of IIT students nationwide over the previous two decades. “The higher education department, which comes under the Union Ministry of Education, initially rejected my application and asked me to file separate RTIs for individual institutes,” Singh stated. “After an appeal, the ministry instructed all IITs to share the data.”
