Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Rohith Kumar, the IIT student who died by suicide on Friday, had been addicted to online gaming since the COVID lockdown and had lost money earlier as well. His parents had scolded him and told him to quit gaming. His friends had also uninstalled gaming apps from his phone, but he couldn’t overcome the addiction.
Rohith was living in the Vikram Sarabhai Hostel on the IIT campus. On Friday night at around 9 pm, his friends went to the dining hall for dinner and called him to join, but when he did not respond, they broke the door of his room and found him hanging.
His friend Vishwanath said that Rohith had got trapped in online betting, leading to financial losses. He couldn’t cope with these losses and yet he was unable to overcome this addiction. He was also under academic pressure as he had three backlogs in his first semester, which added to his stress.
Family falls in BPL category Rohith’s cousin
Roop Singh said, “His parents work as labourers in fields. Rohith was very good in studies. So despite being poor, they managed to send him to the IIT. His family had given him Rs 40,000 for college fees, but he lost the money in online gaming. The last date for fee submission was Saturday, which added to his stress and made him take this extreme step.”
Good in sports and academics
Rohith had participated in the long jump event during the Inter-IIT Athletics competition, where he learned about his poor results. When he returned home, he informed his parents about his results. IIT Indore joint registrar Commander Sunil said that Rohith was a bright student excelling in both academics and sports. Though his first-semester results were not satisfactory, students from south India often faced initial challenges with language and research studies, which they usually overcame later. Rohith was already working on covering these subjects. No signs of academic pressure were evident from his interactions, the joint registrar said.
Returned to college a day prior to incident
Rohith had gone to his native place on December 18 after his first semester examination and Inter-IIT Athletics competition. He had returned to the college on January 2 when his behaviour was normal. But the next day he ended his life.
