A 14-year-old boy committed suicide on Sunday in his hostel room in Kota, the city in Rajasthan known for its coaching class industry, making this the 30th such incident there this year. Bhanu Kumar was the youngest student enrolled with a coaching institute to have committed suicide in 2015.
The district administration had held a long meeting with representatives of coaching institutes three days ago to tackle the growing number of student suicides in the city. They had then instructed institutes to conduct de-stressing activities such as painting and singing for the students, who are usually involved in very competitive, high-level science and mathematics training.
Most of these students are studying to crack the entrance exams for the Indian Institute of Technology, though Kumar was not due to appear for it for another two-and-a-half years. Officials said he had come to Kota from his Bihar home when he was just 13 to improve his physics and mathematics marks. He was irregular at his coaching classes, his tutors said, and his father had not responded to their messages about his absenteeism. Kumar lived alone in a rented flat in the city, and reportedly stayed there even during the vacations, when most students go home. His parents are travelling to Kota to claim his body.
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