Unconscious student of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College dies

A fourth-year student of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College near here was found "unconscious" in his hostel room this afternoon and declared dead by doctors at Jalpaiguri district hospital.

Kotwali police have registered a case of unnatural death.

Sources said Rabi Gupta, 22, a fourth-year student of computer science and engineering, had not opened his room this afternoon. Other students of the hostel informed Amitava Ray, the principal, and then broke the door open around 1.30pm. They found him lying unconscious on his bed. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Gupta was frothing at the mouth when he was taken to the hospital.

"Tomorrow, a post-mortem will be conducted to ascertain the cause of his death," said Gayaram Naskar, the hospital superintendent.

Gupta, college sources said, hails from Adra in Purulia district.

Nitish Khandelwal, the general secretary of the students' union, said fourth-year exams had ended on December 17.

"All of us stay at hostel number three. As the exams were over, many of us were chatting till late at night yesterday and some of us went to our rooms at 4am. We woke up late today. As Rabi was not coming out of his room, some of us called him and knocked his door. He did not respond. We informed the principal and then broke the door open," said Khandelwal.

The principal said Gupta was good in studies and his family had been informed about the "unfortunate incident".

Ashish Roy, the inspector-in charge of Kotwali police station, said: "We have registered a case of unnatural death. We are waiting for the post-mortem report."

On June 5, 2011, Monojit Das, a final year student of civil engineering from the college, was found in his hostel room in an "unconscious" state and later declared dead by doctors at the district hospital.

The police had found liquor bottles and chillum that is used to smoke marijuana in the room. The post-mortem revealed that he had died of overdose of drug and liquor.(TT)