Kota: Coaching student from Haryana commits suicide, father demands probe

Rajasthan's Kota - known as an education hub - once again witnessed the tragic suicide of a student. Police on Wednesday said a 19-year-old student was found hanging from a noose in his hostel room. The student was preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).

The police said they had received a call from the hostel owner about the suicide of the student from Mahendragarh in Haryana last night. 

Neeraj, a student of Class 12, had been preparing for the JEE at a coaching institute in Kota and lived in a hostel in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Circle Inspector Budharam Jat said.

According to the police official, the student allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself to the hook of a ceiling fan in his hostel room late Tuesday evening. However, the incident came to light around 10.30 pm when the caretaker knocked the room and did not receive any response, he added.

The reason behind this extreme step by the boy is yet to be ascertained as no suicide note was recovered from his room, he added.

The post-mortem is underway after the boy's family members reached Kota and a case will be registered according to the report filed by them, Jat said.

The father of the deceased student said that his son was preparing for JEE Main at Allen Coaching in Kota for the last two years. Neeraj was good at studies and attended the coaching classes regularly, he said.

"I spoke to my son Neeraj on phone last time around 3.30 pm on Tuesday and he was in a good mood with no complaints whatsoever," Neeraj's father told reporters outside the mortuary in Kota.

Father demands probe

His father claimed that his son could not have committed suicide. Demanding an impartial investigation into the matter, he alleged that his son was choked to death and was subsequently hung to the ceiling fan to make it appear as a case of suicide.

Neeraj was scheduled to return home by the evening train on January 9 and had a reserved seat, he said. 

50 per cent decline in student suicides in Kota: DM

The Kota district administration claimed that there has been a 50 per cent decline in the number of suicides by students in 2024 as compared to 2023 in this coaching hub of Rajasthan known for preparing students for IIT-JEE entrance tests.

However, no specific breakdown of the numbers has been provided by the officials.

"In comparison to last year, the suicide rate among coaching students has decreased by 50 per cent this year, which is a significant figure in terms of the efforts yielding results. We expect this trend to continue in the future," Kota Collector Ravindra Goswami said on December 29, 2024.

Kota witnessed 17 cases of suicides by coaching students in 2024, compared to 26 such cases in 2023, as per reports.

(With PTI inputs)

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