19-year-old Jagadeeswaran committed suicide after failing the NEET medical entrance exam twice. The boy’s father was also found dead at his house in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, a day after his demise.
After two tries, Jagadeeswaran who had received 427 out of a possible 427 in his Class XII graduation in 2022, failed to pass the NEET entrance exam. On August 12, he was found hanging in his room in the city’s Chromepet area. He was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead. He did not to answer calls from his father, that is when the suspicion arose.
The student apparently felt depressed after failing to achieve the necessary scores in both of his efforts to qualify for the NEET. No suicide note was recovered by the police. Before fatally hanging himself on Monday, his father, Selvasekar, had attributed his son’s death to the NEET administration.
The following morning, his father Selvasekar was also found dead. Selvasekar hanged himself at his home, according to the police, unable to handle the grief of the death of his son.
Selvasekar declared just before his passing that he was prepared to protest the NEET and demand its repeal in Tamil Nadu.
MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, expressed his sorrow for the victims’ deaths and urged students “to not entertain suicidal thoughts but to have self-confidence and to live.”
The Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a measure in 2021 seeking exemption from NEET on the grounds that it disadvantages children from low-income families and rural areas, regardless of how well they perform on their Class XII examinations, and benefits wealthy students who can afford private coaching.
Chief Minister Stalin declared today that when the political transformation we hope to bring about takes place, “the NEET wall will crumble in a few months.”
Prior to this, the state had done away with entrance exams for medical school and instead accepted candidates into MBBS programs based on their Class XII grades.