- IITs recorded 171 student deaths in past two decades.
- 70% of these student deaths occurred in last 10 years.
- Suicides peaked during examination and result periods across IITs.
Following the IIT Bombay suicide case, in which 20-year-old BTech student Sahil Wakode died on September 19 after he was allegedly found using a mobile phone and an AI platform, the incident triggered protests on campus. Amid the controversy, data compiled by IIT alumni has revealed that at least 171 students across the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) died by suicide or unnatural deaths over the past two decades, with nearly 70 per cent of these deaths recorded in the last 10 years.
The data, covering the period from 2006 to September 2026, records 51 student suicides between 2006 and 2015, compared with 120 between 2016 and September 2026. This amounts to at least 171 such deaths across the IITs over the nearly two-decade period.
According to news agency ANI, the data was compiled by Dheeraj Singh, founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group and an IIT-Kanpur alumnus. However, the dataset is based on RTI responses and media reports and does not constitute a centralised official database of all IIT student deaths.
What does the data say?
The alumni data suggests that the sharp rise in student deaths cannot be explained solely by the increase in student enrolment over the years.
According to the analysis, around 82 per cent of the suicides recorded in the dataset occurred within IIT campuses. The number of deaths also peaked during examination and result periods and declined during semester breaks.
The data also points to discrimination faced across social categories. SC and ST students died at roughly twice the rate of General-category students during the period studied and were also younger on average than their General and OBC counterparts.
In the post-Covid period (after 2020), the suicide death rate among SC students was 2.6 times higher, while that among ST students was 4.2 times higher compared with general-category students, the analysis claims.
The evidence establishes that student suicides in IITs constitute a chronic and worsening public health crisis, not a series of isolated or statistically insignificant events. They are patterned, foreseeable, and preventable as per the founder, Dheeraj Singh.
2 suicide cases in the last 2 months
The findings come at a time when two student deaths at IITs in the last two months have triggered protests, institutional enquiries and renewed questions over student welfare mechanisms.
At IIT Delhi, 31-year-old MSc Physics student Rishikesh Kumar died on August 22. His death led to student protests demanding an independent probe and accountability, following which the institute constituted an external inquiry committee to examine the circumstances surrounding his death.
At IIT Bombay, 20-year-old BTech student Sahil Wakode died on September 19, shortly after an incident during a mid-semester examination in which he was allegedly found using a mobile phone and an AI platform. The incident triggered protests on campus.
IIT Bombay later apologised for its initial statement regarding the circumstances preceding the death, saying it was inappropriate to make such statements while the matter was under investigation.
( With inputs from ANI )