New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- As many as 173 students of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) died by suicide or unnatural death over the last two decades, with around 70 per cent of the deaths recorded in the last 10 years, according to an IIT alumni group.

The data, compiled for the period from 2006 to September 2026, records 51 student suicides between 2006 and 2015, compared with 120 between 2016 and September 2026.

The compilation records at least 171 such deaths across the IITs over the nearly two-decade period.

This data has been compiled by Dheeraj Singh, founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group and an IIT-Kanpur alumnus.

Singh's analysis suggests that the sharp increase cannot be explained by the rise in student enrolmen...