The government-appointed commit tee investigating the recent deaths of five students from BITS Pilani, Goa, is examin ing how academic stress, parental expectations, and anxiety disorders may have played a role. The high-lev el panel, chaired by South Goa District Collector Egna Cletus, IAS, has been hold ing detailed interactions with parents, students, and faculty members as part of its inquiry, which is nearing the report submission stage. While speaking to the media, Collector Cletus confirmed that the probe is being carried out in line with guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in July this year. “The district-lev el committee has conduct ed preliminary meetings based on which we have framed a checklist on how to go about the probe,” she told reporters, adding that the inquiry is aimed at identifying the reasons that may have contributed to the deaths. As part of the process, the Collector and her team visited the BITS Pilani cam pus around two weeks ago.
During this visit, they engaged with the academic leadership, including the Dean, representatives of the student body, counsel lors, and members of the institute’s mental health programme, Empower. “We have posed them certain questions based on the Supreme Court’s guide lines. After the meeting, we started the exercise to find out the reasons behind the deaths,” Cletus said. The panel has also been interacting with the par ents of all five deceased students. According to the Collector, many of the fam ilies have pointed to paren tal pressure as a concern. In three of the cases, anxiety issues were evident, and the committee is now try ing to establish whether these were directly linked to academics or to other circumstances. “We are currently interacting with the parents and students to know their observations,” she explained. To strengthen the fact-finding process, sev eral sub-committees have been formed and split into smaller teams. These teams have been making regular visits to the BITS campus to question counsellors and assess the facilities provid ed from the perspective of student mental health. “The teams are trying to find out what facilities have been made available to the stu dents and how they are be ing utilised,” Cletus added. With most parent inter actions now completed, the committee will soon circulate a questionnaire to gather additional inputs be fore finalising its findings. Once compiled, the report will be submitted to the government.
