2 More Deaths in 3 Days Takes Kota’s Suicide Toll to 13 This Year
After a drop last year, student suicides are again on a rise in Rajasthan’s Kota.
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A 16-year-old NEET aspirant allegedly killed herself on Tuesday, 7 August, by hanging from the ceiling fan of her hostel room in Kota, Rajasthan. The student, Sakshi Maratha, hailed from Buldhana region of Maharashtra, and came to Kota in April for coaching.
According to a Hindustan Times report, she was enrolled in Allen Career Coaching Institute.
This is the second student suicide in Kota in the last three days.
On Sunday, a 15-year-old from Nalanda in Bihar also hanged himself in his hostel room in Kota.
The Times of India reported that the deceased left behind a suicide note which said he took this step owing to low marks in the internal tests.
The two incidents take the number of students committing suicide in the biggest coaching hub in the country to 13 this year.
Kota saw a spike in number of students killing themselves in 2015-16 with 33 suicides, while the number came down last year to just 4.
Though these students form a small percentage of the 1.5 lakh students who come to Kota each year, they cannot be brushed aside as mere statistics. The Quint did a ground report to understand how a breeding ground for academic excellence is snuffing out young lives.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times and The Times of India.)
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