The Hindu : New Delhi News : Another suicide haunts AIIMS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 08, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Another suicide haunts AIIMS

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 7. A 25-year-old doctor at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences here allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his rented accommodation at Gautam Nagar in South Delhi on Sunday night. No suicide note was found at the spot.

According to the police, Dr.Pankaj Aggarwal was found hanging by his roommate, Dr. Ankur, around midnight. "When there was no response to Dr. Ankur's repeated knocks, he opened the door using a duplicate key and went inside -- only to find Dr. Pankaj hanging from the ceiling fan with the help of a bed-sheet," said a police officer.

Dr. Pankaj was last seen on Sunday evening.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Dr. Pankaj, son of an advocate at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, had been staying in the rented accommodation along with Dr. Ankur for the past couple of months. While they shared one room, another room on the same floor was shared by two other doctors.

All of them were working at AIIMS. Dr. Pankaj had completed his MBBS from Sawai Man Singh Medical College in Jaipur and was pursuing a postgraduate course in radiology at AIIMS.

Inquiries also revealed that Dr. Pankaj was an introvert and usually kept to himself. In the past 10 days, Pankaj had gone quieter. "There are some indications that he was facing adjustment problems in the new setting. But we do not have any concrete evidence to point out the exact reason behind the incident," said the police.

Dr. Pankaj's parents were informed of the tragedy this morning. They arrived in the Capital later in the day and took his body to their native place after post-mortem in the afternoon.

This is the third such incident since the beginning of the year in which a young doctor has either ended his life or made an attempt.

On January 24, a Safdarjung doctor pursuing a Masters course in surgery had committed suicide in his hostel room. In another case, an AIIMS doctor had attempted suicide.

Last month, the father of an AIIMS doctor, Rachit Gupta, who had committed suicide last year, had lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Rachit's senior colleagues had been harassing him. He had also alleged that the Institute was trying to save its reputation by claiming that Rachit had complex psychological problems.

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