BITS Goa student found dead in hostel room, 4th death on campus in 9 months | Goa News

Vasco: A 20-year-old third year economics and computer science student of BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa campus was found dead in the hostel room on Saturday morning.This is the fourth student death reported at the campus in nine months. The three earlier cases were suicides.The latest incident has been registered by Verna police as a case of unnatural death. The postmortem examination report which is scheduled to be held on Sunday is expected to throw more light on the cause of the death. The student is a native of Uttar Pradesh.The institute, in a statement, issued late on Saturday said that the student had “a CGPA close to 9”.“The BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus community is deeply saddened by the loss of one of its students today. He was found in an unresponsive state on his bed when his room was opened at around 11am (on Aug 16), and the medical team confirmed that he had passed away in his sleep. The police were informed and have initiated the required procedures to ascertain the cause of death, and we are fully cooperating,” said institute’s public relations officer Arjun Halarnkar.He told TOI that on Friday evening the student’s father called him on his phone, but the calls went unanswered.“His father called his friends to check about his son’s whereabouts, wherein they tried a lot to open the door of his hostel block which was locked from inside. They later checked from the ventilator and found the student lying on the bed,” he said.Earlier, three suicide cases of students were registered on the BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa campus, with the earlier Goa governor P S Sreedharan Pillai seeking a report on the death from the institute.In the first case, Om Priyan Singh, 21, a second-year BE computer science and MSc chemistry student from Uttar Pradesh, died by suicide in Dec 2024. The second case was in March 2025 relating to Atharv Desai, 20, a third-year dual degree student.In third incident, 20-year-old student Krishna Kasera from Lucknow, a second-year student pursuing a dual degree in MSc chemistry and BE electrical and instrumentation, was reported to have died by suicide in May 2025.