Half-mark heartbreak: Telangana student who watched suicide videos kills self

Hyderabad: For four months, Racharla Karthik had been watching videos on how to end his life. The 19-year-old first-year degree student, already struggling under the weight of academic pressure and a father’s comparisons, had apparently been searching and finding content that showed him the way out.

On Sunday, April 26, he used it.

Karthik was found hanging from a towel in his hostel room at the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Gurukul near Nanchari Madur village in Thorrur mandal, Mahabubabad district. 

A fellow student, Nitin, told police he had last seen Karthik on his phone before stepping out briefly. When he returned, Karthik was hanging. Nitin gathered other hostel residents before informing the warden, who called the police. The body was shifted to Wardhannapet Area Hospital for postmortem.

Thorrur Police, speaking to Siasat.com, said Karthik had been sinking into depression over academics for the past four months, a period during which he had been regularly watching suicide videos online. 

The immediate trigger, according to Nitin, was a loss of 0.5 marks in the EAMCET examination. What compounded it, police said, was his father comparing him with another student who had qualified.

Karthik’s father Devender said his son had not shown suicidal tendencies before, and raised questions over the absence of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras at the hostel. A case of suspicious death has been registered under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

Karthik’s death comes amid a broader pattern of student suicides in Telangana linked to exam results and academic pressure, with at least 12 deaths reported in three days following the recent Intermediate results.