Three students preparing for competitive entrance tests in a Kota coaching centre died by suicide late Sunday night. This has brought the spotlight back on the punishing pressure teenagers experience at private institutes in the Rajasthan city for limited seats in premier technical and medical colleges.
Two of them were from Bihar, and the third was from Madhya Pradesh. They didn’t leave any suicide note.
Ankush Anand, 16, from Supaul district in Bihar, and Pranav Verma, 17, from Shivpuri district in MP were coaching for the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET)—the exam for medical colleges. The third student was Ujjwal Kumar, 18, a JEE aspirant from Bihar’s Gaya district.
A bottle of rodenticide found in his room suggested that Pranav died by poison in his hostel in the Landmark area of the city late Sunday night. He had been coaching for the past two years. He was found unconscious in a corridor of his hostel. Police reached the hostel at midnight and took the boy to a hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. Ankush and Ujjwal had been staying at the same paying guest accommodation for the past six months and both had been preparing for their entrance tests in the same coaching institute for around two years.
They were in adjacent rooms in the PG in the Talwandi area of Kota. When the boys did not open their doors till 11 am Monday, fellow boarders informed the caretaker of the PG. Cops broke open the doors and found the boys hanging from the ceiling fan in their rooms.
An initial inquiry found that Ankush and Ujjwal had been skipping classes at their coaching institute for quite some time.
Also Read: Medical Board To Access MBBS Aspirant’s Suitability
