Former students of IIT Kharagpur have started a signature campaign because of the “grave situation” prevailing on the campus stemming from the “number of incidents of suicides by students” in the past two years.
The “IIT administration needs to undertake effective measures to stop such incidents in the future”, reads the memorandum, which will be sent to the IIT Kharagpur director, V.K. Tewari.
“There is a need for effective dialogue with the students and the administration has to sensitively build it up taking support from various sections of the IIT community including the alumni.” The campaign was started on Wednesday, October 26.
On October 14, the partially decomposed body of Faizan Ahmed, a third-year BTech student from Assam, was found in his hostel room, triggering anger among students. The alumni have demanded “justice for Faizan”. So far, 350 former students have signed the memorandum.
Calls and text messages to the director for a reaction went unanswered on Thursday. Arindam Roy, a former student, said what really pained them was the loss of lives and the absence of empathy in the administration.
“The IIT Kharagpur deputy director, Amit Patra, has admitted lapses in the aftermath of the death of Faizan Ahmed. We want to know why such glaring lapses happened. Thousands of students accused the director in an open-house session last week of failing them and sought his resignation,” Roy said.
“This has to be fixed without any delay. The IIT administration has to address the mental health concerns of the students.”
Indrajit Dutta, who graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 1977, and was one of the signatories, told The Telegraph: “Five suicides in three years and the authorities had done little to address the concerns of students. We need to augment the counselling centre with the appointment of more counsellors. The sensitivity that needs to be shown is missing.”
Students at IIT Kharagpur had expressed the same concern to the institute’s director in the open-house session.
A signatory who did not want to be named said that while it was not yet clear how Faizan died, it is clear that the administration lacked sensitivity in dealing with grievances of students.
“What did the authorities do to prevent the five deaths? In the case of Faizan, what happened after his body was found was appalling,” he said.
Teachers at IIT Kharagpur had met on Sunday and resolved that the authorities had to improve their communication with the students.
