BITS Goa Alumnus Akhil Mehta committed Suicide Due to Depression

Barely 27 year old, Akhil Mehta was an influential social media personality. His Twitter handle @AapChutiyeHain and Facebook satire communities had more than 2,70,000 followers. Quite outspoken about corruption, hypocricy, religion and other social fallacies, he chose insult comedy as his medium of expression. Akhil had been the President of the Student Union at the Birla Institute of Techology and Science (BITS) Pilani – Goa campus. On March 27, 2015, he went missing.

Akhil was last seen at Vijay Nagar, New Delhi where he lived with his family. His friends started a Facebook page called ‘Finding Akhil Mehta – Tillu’ who feared that he might have been kidnapped by one of the many political and religious groups that were threatening him for criticizing them.

On March 28, media reported that an ‘unidentified male’ committed suicide by jumping from a high-rise water tank in Tronica City, Ghaziabad. Some local women saw him walking down the pushta near the tank between 9 am and 10 am on the fateful day. He quickly climbed to the top of the tank and before anyone could understand what was happening, he jumped off it. He died instantaneously. No one in the area knew him.

They reported the incident to the police which conducted an autopsy and then cremated the body on March 31. “No FIR was lodged in the case but the pictures of the man were circulated on Whatsapp by us”, said Avdhesh Kumar Yadav, SHO of Tronica City police station.

Akhil’s parents came to know about the incident and visited the police station. They saw photos of the deceased and were convinced that he was their son. Allegedly, Mehta took the extreme step because of ‘depression’. His uncle Jitendra Mehta told the media that Akhil was under treatment for depression.

BITSians have flooded Twitter, Facebook and Reddit forums with tributes and RIP messages for Akhil and discussions on depression. However, some of the Akhil’s fellow BITSians also posted that it was a shock to see such a jovial and lively person sink to such depths because of psychological problems.

Akhil’s posted his last tweet was on Valentine’s Day where he chose to speak about his mom’s love:

Mom smiles and I am a beautiful person

— #हिंदीहैशटैगडे (@AapChutiyeHain) February 14, 2015