HYDERABAD: Alleging pressure from his teachers to secure higher marks, Vaibhav, a 16-year-old Intermediate first-year student of Narayana Junior College, Chaitanyapuri, died by suicide at his house at Jillelaguda in Meerpet on Tuesday.
Vaibhav was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the puja room around 10 am. In a suicide note, Vaibhav wrote: “It’s my last day. Sorry, mom, dad and brother. I am dying due to pressure from the college principal to secure good marks. Nobody should join Narayana College. There should not be pressure on students.”
Police said that Vaibhav’s parents and relatives initially refused to allow them to shift the body for postmortem but later relented.
The police registered a case under IPC Section 306 against the college management.
According to a local, the boy was seen supplying milk to households in the area barely hours before the incident.
Narayana Junior College dean M Radhakrishna told TNIE that Vaibhav was a good student. “He never complained about anything and neither did his parents.”
The dean said that Vaibhav had enrolled for integrated IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) coaching.
No scope of pressure on students, says Narayana College dean
Reacting to the allegations that the student died by suicide as he was under pressure to score good marks, Radhakrishna said that initially, Vaibhav joined the residential campus before being shifted to the day college where the timings were from 8 am to 4 pm.
“The timings are more student-friendly, allowing students to spend time with their parents. There is no scope of pressure on students,” he said.
Asked about the suicide note purportedly left by Vaibhav urging his parents not to admit his brother into the college, the dean said, “In my 23 years of service in this division, this has been the first-of-its-kind
incident and Vaibhav’s death is very unfortunate and distressing. We do not know what was
going on in his mind.”
“Thousands of students have been studying here and we haven’t faced anything like this in this branch,” he insisted.
(Suicide helplines -- Maithri, Cochin: +91 239 6272; Sumaitri, New Delhi: 2338 9090, Sneha, Chennai: 91-44-2464 0050, 91-44-2464 0060, Aasra, Mumbai: 9820466726, Fortis MentalHealth: 8376804102)