Demand for probe into suicide by IIT-Madras boy

“I want an inquiry into the incident…if found responsible,the professor should be suspended. I have lost my son but I do not want incidents like these to recur. I will soon approach the NHRC in this regard,” Nitin’s father Lakshmana Murthy Reddy,a DRDO official working in Delhi,told reporters.

Nitin,who wanted to work in NASA since childhood as he was interested in aerospace,had written an apologetic and disconcerted e-mail to his father and some other relatives before taking the extreme step.

On May 4,before committing suicide,Nitin spoke to his father,telling him about his disappointment over the professor’s decision to extend his project. “I tried to console him. I booked my tickets and told him that I would come to Chennai,” 59-year-old Murthy said.

Nitin was supposed to join a banking software company as a systems analyst by July,he said,adding,the extension of his project meant he would not have been able to do so.

The institute has reportedly said that Nitin was suffering from depression,a claim that Murthy rebuts.

“I know my son. He wasn’t a patient of depression. And if the institute is claiming so…why didn’t they inform us (parents) about it,” he said.

In February this year,V Anup,a final year student undergoing the same course in the same college had committed suicide.