India, Sept. 21 -- At least 171 students in various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have died by suicide or in other unnatural ways in the last 20 years - between January 2006 and September 2026.

The data has been compiled by Dheeraj Singh, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and founder of a platform supporting students from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/STs). Singh, whose data is based on RTI applications and media reports, says this is a 135% increase in the number of reported deaths since 2006, the earliest year for which he could source data on unnatural deaths.

He says the number of deaths has increased sharply in the second half of this period, with 120 deaths recorded between 2016 and September 2026 compared to 51 between 2...