IIT Delhi stares at a challenge: 12 students have died on campus since 2006, show its records

Indian Express

a day ago

An ambulance sat parked outside Dronagiri hostel of IIT Delhi in the afternoon sun as a 30-year-old PhD student hurried past on Wednesday. He had spent another grueling day in the lab, the familiar rhythm of research and deadlines filling his mind. But the sight of the emergency vehicle outside made him stop and look. 'That is when I realised something had happened,' he would later recall.
What he didn't know yet was that inside the hostel, another student was found dead — the body undiscovered for days.
Ayush Singhal, a 25-year-old student pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, had not been seen or heard from since Monday night. When his body was finally discovered on Wednesday, it marked yet another pointer to what appears to be a pattern of students disappearing into their rooms, cut off from the world, until the smell of a decomposing body alerts their neighbours. The cause of death of the student is yet to be declared.
According to official records accessed by The Indian Express, at least 12 students have died on the IIT Delhi campus between 2006 and 2024, with 10 of them being male students and two female. The deaths span across different academic programmes —from undergraduate, postgraduate to PhD students—but share common threads: isolation, delayed discovery, and rooms locked from the inside. Six of 12 students belonged to the Scheduled Caste Communities, two from the OBC background, and four from the General category.
Five of these deaths were suicides that took place in 2023 and 2024, with the most recent in October 2024. Two were reported in the year 2021. All students were campus residents.
In September 2023, a 21-year-old BTech student from the SC community was found hanging in his hostel room in a decomposed state. Just months earlier, in July 2023, another 20-year-old BTech student was discovered hanging after his family traveled to Delhi when he stopped responding to calls and texts for two days.
'The life of a PhD student is completely different in an IIT,' explains the 30-year-old student who saw the ambulance on Wednesday. 'We are in our own world and more isolated than the rest of the MTech or BTech students. Our social circles are small, and mostly our peers in the labs would know more about what is happening with us than the ones in the hostel or other friends on campus.'
On Wednesday evening, B.K. Panigrahi, Dean, Student Affairs, wrote an email to students: 'While we try to deal with the terrible pain and sorrow, the loss to his family and friends is unimaginable. This challenging time reminds us of the constant need to be there for each other. You are also requested to reach out to the multiple counselling avenues in our system if you need help in coping with this tragedy. Of course, all faculty and administration are also there for any support.'
'Every time a student dies, the administration tells us we must be there for each other, but nothing changes,' he adds.
At Dronagiri hostel, one of the newest facilities on campus, students said safety protocols designed to protect both male and female students have created an unintended consequence: friends from other hostels cannot visit rooms, limiting interactions to common areas or outside spaces. 'How would a friend check if the student is not picking up their phone or has not been responding?' asked a 27-year-old fifth-year PhD student who formerly lived at Dronagiri.
While undergraduate students grapple with coursework and semester grades, PhD students face a different challenge entirely. 'The academic pressure for PhD students is very different compared to BTech students,' explained another student. 'For PhD students, the pressure is to make nice with the supervisor and to be on good terms as the grading and support on campus depend upon them.'
Perhaps most troubling is how normalised this isolation has become, some of them feel.
The gender dimension of this crisis cannot be ignored. A day scholar pursuing his fifth year of PhD at IIT Delhi said, 'The culture of socialisation is very poor amongst male students on campus as compared to female students. When I look at my female student friends on campus, they have a better social group and an outlet to release their pressure. But for male students, that seems difficult. They don't share campus pressure at home or with friends, they tend to cope with it by themselves.'
The campus data supports this observation—of the 12 recorded deaths, only two were female.
'Just because we have managed to secure admission at IIT, it is an unsaid thing on campus—it is expected of us to deal with the pressure,' said the 30-year-old student.
The solution, according to students, lies not just in mental health resources but in fundamental changes to campus culture. 'There needs to be more initiatives from the administration's side to promote social interaction within hostel campuses,' suggests the day scholar. 'The healthy conversation about academic pressure is still not happening amongst students. It is more prevalent in the case of younger students doing their undergraduation as this conversation doesn't happen even amongst their groups.'
The Indian Express reached out to Public Relations Officer Shiv Yadav and Director Rangan Banerjee over calls, messages, and emails, but received no response in the matter.
Last year, after students demanded that IIT Delhi set up an external committee to examine the 'institutional processes and environment' in the context of student suicides. The panel's report, submitted in August 2024, flagged high academic pressure, a grading system that reinforces 'toxic competitiveness,' and caste and gender discrimination as key triggers on campus. However, it was learnt and earlier reported by The Indian Express that the report languished without response for months—even as another student died by suicide in October 2024, a month after the panel submitted its recommendations.
It wasn't until April 2025 that IIT Delhi publicly acknowledged the findings, admitting that factors affecting student well-being—from 'excessively competitive environments' and 'coaching culture' to 'social biases of caste and gender'—had been 'identified by the institute and discussed at multiple forums.' The institution stated it is developing a 'comprehensive action plan' to strengthen student support structures, with the report to be tabled before the Institute's Board of Governors along with implementation measures.