NEET aspirant dies by suicide, said no courage to write exam again

June 5, 2026 /Posted byPrajwal EW / 0

In a tragic fallout of the ongoing controversy surrounding the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), an 18-year-old medical aspirant allegedly died by suicide in Nagpur after falling into deep depression over reports of exam irregularities and paper leaks.

Akanksha Chaturvedi, a resident of Maganiya village in Madhya Pradesh’s Mauganj district, was found hanging in her hostel room on May 20. A handwritten suicide note stating “I have no courage” was recovered days later by her family has laid bare the immense psychological toll and academic pressure faced by students amid the nationwide examination crisis.

According to police and family sources, Akanksha had been preparing for the highly competitive exam at a coaching institute in Nagpur. In her final note, she apologized to her parents for not being able to fulfill their shared dream.

“Mom and Dad, you had faith that your daughter would study hard and become a doctor, but I no longer dare to take the NEET exam again,” the note read. “I was scoring good marks in my first attempt, but now there is no guarantee that I will perform well again. I am sorry, Mom and Dad. I have ruined everything.”

Akanksha’s family had pinned their hopes on her education to lift them out of financial hardship. Her father, Krishna Kumar Chaubey, a small-scale farmer, had taken immense financial risks to fund her coaching. To meet the expenses, he had temporarily relocated to Nagpur to work as a cook while his family back home cultivated a small plot of land.

Family members revealed that the preparation was funded through a loan of nearly ₹3 lakh taken via a Kisan Credit Card, supplemented by financial borrowing from relatives.

Her uncle, Jagdish Prasad Chaturvedi said “She was extremely happy after the exam and told us she expected to score more than 650 marks. “But when reports about the paper leak started appearing, she went into deep shock. She stopped eating, stopped talking much, and remained disturbed. We never imagined things would end this way.”

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“An uneducated Indian is not a free Indian. India’s education system remains trapped in regulations that reward compliance over learning and scarcity over opportunity. The solution to exam leaks, coaching factories and unemployability is not more licensing, but more supply. We need more schools, more colleges, more competition and more education entrepreneurs. A 21st-century education must not only impart knowledge but encourage questioning. India does not need fewer cooks in the kitchen; it needs more cooks, more recipes and fewer bureaucrats guarding empty plates.”

- Manish Sabharwal, The Indian Express, (2/6)

India’s examination system rests on a foundational assumption that the process is fair, even when outcomes disappoint, and once that trust erodes, the system loses its legitimacy. This is not merely a technical controversy but a credibility crisis, because digitising evaluation is not the same as reforming it. Technology can assist evaluation, but it cannot replace the intellectual responsibility that fair assessment demands. The controversy has shown that technology has not removed subjectivity or error, it has merely shifted them into a different format. Educational institutions cannot run experiments on students whose futures depend on these results, and the obligation is to anticipate failure before implementation, not offer explanations after the damage is done.

- P John J Kennedy, The Indian Express, (26/5)

NEET aspirant dies by suicide, said no courage to write exam again

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