The demand for a psychological counseling centre has long been overlooked at Chittagong University while at least eight students and two teachers committed suicide in the past three years.
These unnatural deaths, said to have been instigated mainly by failure in academic life, strained love affair and unhappy family relation, have worried the teachers and guardians.
Students of the university have long been demanding a psychological counseling centre at the university but the demand has remained unheeded as yet.
Of late, Sohag Hawlader, a student of finance and banking department under the business faculty, committed suicide on April 19.
In 2008, Saiful Islam, a student of public administration department, committed suicide after attending his honours final exam.
Abul Hasanat, a student of sociology, committed suicide in 2009 out of frustration over his family problem.
Joy Narayan Dewanji, a student of English department, committed suicide in 2010 after cutting a sorry figure in his first year exam.
The same year, Jahir Uddin, a final year student of philosophy department, committed suicide for the same reason.
Marifa, a female student of forestry and environmental institute, died four months after she attempted to commit suicide by drinking nitric acid on October 10, 2011.
In September, 2011, Saikat, a third year student of economics department, attempted to commit suicide.
Lokman Hossain, a third year student of LLB department, committed suicide as he could not take part in the exam due to poor attendance in classes.
On August 9, 2011, Sourabh Majumder Dhruba, a first year student of economics department, also committed suicide because of poor result.
Ajmir Hossain of LLB department committed suicide as he failed in his first year exam.
Psychologists have attributed this recent spate of suicide incidents at the university to mainly poor result in examinations, failure in love affair, family strain, frustration, inability to bear educational expense etc.
They have expressed apprehension that if immediate steps were not taken, it will be difficult to arrest the trend of committing suicide at the university.
Nurul Islam, chairperson of the psychology department at Chittagong University, told New Age that the tendency to commit suicide at the university was increasing alarmingly.
‘Mental stress, loneliness, result debacle, economic crisis, lack of family support, unrequited love are mainly responsible for prompting the students to commit suicide,’ he said, adding that the psychological counseling centre should be set up at the university on an urgent basis.
‘We are looking into the matter and are really worried about the recent spate of suicide incidents,’ said Professor Anwarul Azim Arif, vice-chancellor of the university, and added that they had a plan to appoint psychologists at each residential hall of the students so that they could counsel the students.