A 22-year-old student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the hostel building in Powai here in the wee hours of Saturday, police said.

The student, Rohit Sinha, allegedly jumped from the 10th floor of the hostel around 2.30am, an official said.

He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead, he said.

According to the police, Sinha, a native of Delhi, was a fourth-year student of Metallurgical Sciences.

An accidental death report has been registered, and a probe has been initiated, the official said.

The incident comes at a time when there is national spotlight on suicides and deaths in educational institutions like the premier IITs.

Last month, the Supreme Court said the continued loss of young lives by way of suicides reflected "a systemic failure" and that the issue "cannot be ignored".

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta passed a slew of pan-India guidelines to deal with the issue.

The court said the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics published in 2022 titled "Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India" painted a "deeply distressing picture".

"The continued loss of young lives, often due to preventable causes rooted in unattended psychological distress, academic overburden, social stigma, and institutional insensitivity, reflect a systemic failure that cannot be ignored," it said.

India recorded 1,70,924 reported suicide cases in 2022, of which 7.6 per cent, approximately 13,044, were student suicides.