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'Papa, I am sorry': Another Indian Neet aspirant dies by suicide ahead of retest
With pressures piling up on Indian students as the retest for the Neet approaches, there are instances of some students taking the extreme step of committing suicide
- PUBLISHED: Wed 17 Jun 2026, 1:14 PM
A 24-year-old student, who was to appear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Neet), rescheduled for June 21, allegedly committed suicide at her home in Dehradun in India’s Uttarakhand state, on Tuesday. According to the Dehradun police, Riya Kumari, was preparing for the medical entrance test at her home.
Kumari's parents had to break open the door to her room when she did not respond to the knocks. Kumari’s body was found hanging from the ceiling fan and a suicide note was found near her. “I love you, Papa; I am sorry,” she had written. “This is not due to anyone’s fault; this is due to my incompetence.” Her parents had seen her the previous night and were shocked to find her body hanging from the ceiling.
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The police said she had been preparing for several examinations and would spend hours studying in her room. Her family did not opt for a postmortem and Riya was cremated later on Tuesday.
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With pressures piling up on students as the retest for the Neet approaches, there are instances of some students taking the extreme step of committing suicide.
More suicides
Just a day before Riya took her life, Umesh Mali, 22, who was to make a third attempt for Neet, also took the drastic measure. Umesh was staying with his siblings in a flat in Nawalgarh in Rajasthan and his body was found in his room, hanging from a fan, when his sister and brother returned in the afternoon. "Sorry! I am going very far away; I don't know where I am going,” he wrote in the note he left behind for his family members.
Last month, Pradeep Mahich from Sikar in Rajasthan, who was also preparing for his Neet exams, was distressed by the paper leak. His family had taken loans to enable him to prepare for the exams, but Pradeep decided to end his life. His body was found hanging from the fan.
Another student, Bhagyashree, 18, was doing well in her studies and had cleared her PUC exams with 92 per cent marks. “There was no distress or problems in our family,” her father Raja Shekhar, told the media in Kalaburagi, Karnataka. “She had performed well in Neet and everything was going well. Maybe she had some feelings in her mind about sitting for it again.” The police said Bhagyashree, who committed suicide towards the end of May, had not left behind any note.
A study on Suicide Trends (by Devesh Gupta and others of the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi), among students preparing for joint entrance tests for IITs and Neet last year revealed that the majority of suicides were committed by male students (77 per cent) in the 15-20 age group.
Alarming rates of suicide
Hanging was the most common method, followed by poisoning and jumping. “This study highlights alarming rates of suicide among IIT JEE and Neet aspirants in India, emphasising the need for targeted mental health support and intervention strategies,” said the report. “The findings underscore the role of academic pressure and geographic variability in suicide risk among these students.”
India Today magazine, in a 2021-26 analysis of ‘Neet’s suicide toll’, revealed that there were 93 Neet-linked reported student suicides in the last five years. Last year was the highest, with 32 students committing suicide. And 2026 has already seen 14 Neet students taking their lives.
