Faizan Ahmed, an undergraduate student who was found dead on the campus in October, was “threatened, humiliated and verbally abused” by senior students at a hostel, says a report of the institute’s fact-finding committee that has been submitted in the high court.
But the hostel authorities did not report the incident to senior officials of the institute despite receiving a complaint from the student, says the report.
The third-year student of mechanical engineering changed his hostel after he was allegedly harassed during an assimilation programme that his family has called a “glorified version of collective ragging”. But the hall council members, the report says, “never intimated the change... to the wardens”.
The IIT Kharagpur director, V.K. Tiwari, submitted the report in the high court last Friday when he appeared in the court of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha. Calls to Tiwari from this newspaper went unanswered.
Lawyers representing Faizan’s family said the report tried to “blame and shame” the student. They cited the portion of the report that says Faizan invested money in cryptocurrency and stocks and his “financial dealing/earnings from video gaming and investments suffered a blow days prior to his death”.
The report says: “In the absence of the post-mortem report to which the committee has no access, the observation of the committee is that Faizan Ahmed was suffering from mental health issues immediately before his death arising from factors (like rejection in internship). Possibility of suicide cannot be ruled out.”
Justice Mantha had on December 20 asked the lawyers representing Faizan’s family — Ranajit Chatterjee and Aniruddha Mitra — to go through the report and communicate deficiencies, if any, to the IIT director.
The report says: “On... February 3, 2022, some seniors... asked him (Faizan) to the new common room (of the RP Hall of Residence) to explain his reluctance (to participate in the assimilation programme) to all students present…. In the process, however, as complained by Faizan Ahmed, they (seniors) threatened and humiliated him with slurs and abusive languages. Then another senior student convinced him to go there.”
“Once he entered the room, as indicated by Faizan’s email, he was again humiliated and verbally abused. The email dated February 4, 2022, to the warden detailed the incident.”
The report says the RP hall warden sent an email to all students staying at the hostel mentioning the complaint.
“A meeting was called by the warden on February 4…. At that meeting he warned students against any such behaviour.... The incident, however, was not reported to the institute authorities,” the report says.
Faizan was found dead in a room at the LLR Hall of Residence.