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The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata has formed a fact-finding committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the recent, unnatural death of PhD scholar Anamitra Roy.
“A fact-finding team was instituted on August 9 to look into the matter. It comprises both external and internal members,” a spokesperson of IISER Kolkata told The Hindu on Monday (August 11, 2025).
Mr. Roy, a 25-year-old scholar of biological sciences, passed away on Friday (August 8, 2025) morning at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Kalyani, after being found unconscious in a laboratory on the Kalyani campus.
The family of the deceased filed a police complaint against his fellow PhD scholar Sourabh Biswas and his supervisor Anindita Bhadra at Haringhata Police Station on August 9, and a case was lodged, according to a relative. These two individuals were named and accused of abuse and negligence in a social media post by Mr. Roy hours before his death.
“While it is being deemed a suicide, we believe it is an institutional murder. His friends are witnesses to how complicit these two individuals were in driving him to his death. He had spoken to his parents at around 8.40 p.m. the previous night. Nobody imagined we would lose him the next day,” a relative of the deceased told The Hindu.
In the wee hours of Friday (August 8, 2025), Mr. Roy posted a detailed message on his social media account about his struggles at the Institute, alleging abuse by Mr. Biswas, and oversight by Professor Bhadra, as well as the Institute’s anti-ragging cell.
“I alongside many of my colleagues have been repeatedly abused by Sourabh Biswas, a PhD student in our lab. Repeated complains to our supervisor Anindita Bhadra fell to deaf ears,” Mr. Roy had written on Facebook.
He had further alleged that Mr. Bhadra blamed him for the circumstances despite his complaints. Mr. Bhadra is a professor of biological sciences at IISER.
He had added that on April 12, Mr. Biswas had allegedly “shouted at him for an extended period of time” in the lab, and that no action was taken despite him lodging repeated complaints with the Institute’s anti-ragging cell. In a document titled ‘Regarding Sourabh’, the deceased scholar had further said that he demands an apology from Mr. Biswas on his official email for his “repeated instances of abusive behaviour”.
“I registered complaints with IISER Kolkata anti-ragging cell both via email and via official portal. They never reached back to me. One member of students’ affairs council was supportive to me, while another told me that I should have thought about lab’s reputation before complaining,” the scholar had alleged.
Personal struggles
According to his social media post, Mr. Roy had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and had also faced “recurrent physical, mental abuse from parents”.
Mr. Roy was a researcher at IISER Kolkata’s ‘Dog Lab’ headed by Professor Bhadra. The lab, located in the CV Raman building of the Institute’s Mohanpur campus, studies the natural history and behaviour of India’s stray dogs.
Mr. Roy was part of at least three publications by the lab, including as the first author in one publication titled “Ready, set, yellow! Color preference of Indian free-ranging dogs”, published earlier this year. The study on colour vision-related behaviours in dogs found an overwhelming preference for the colour yellow in 134 untrained adult dogs.
“Anamitra had informed the IISER administration multiple times about his experiences being bullied by his fellows. They did not respond to him or meet him even once. There is no doubt that what happened to him [is] tantamount to ragging, and that the negligence of the campus authority is to be blamed for his death,” State secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) Debanjan Dey said.
He added that representatives of SFI have requested an audience with the Institute’s director on August 14.
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