A second-year student of IIT Kharagpur died on Monday night after choking on a tablet he was trying to swallow.

Chandradeep Pawar, the 19-year-old electrical engineering student from Madhya Pradesh, was declared dead at the B.C. Roy Technology Hospital on campus.

The death occurred just three days after a fourth-year mechanical engineering student from Calcutta was found hanging in his hostel room.

Chandradeep was in his room at the Nehru Hall of Residence chatting with his friends after dinner on Monday when he took a medicine prescribed by doctors because he was running a fever, said IIT Kharagpur director Suman Chakraborty.

“As soon as he tried to swallow the pill, he began choking. His friends patted his back to help him spit out the tablet, but it didn’t work. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors tried to revive him but could not,” he said.

Doctors managed to remove only a fragment of the tablet, said an IIT official.

A bulletin from the hospital stated that Chandradeep was brought to the Emergency Room at 10.20pm.

“When he was brought to the ER, there was an absence of pulse, BP was not recordable,” it said. Doctors immediately began CPR and administered emergency drugs, it said.

His body has been sent for autopsy, Chakraborty said. His family in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, has been informed. An FIR has been lodged.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Chandradeep had been an associate member of the student-run Kharagpur Blockchain Society since December 2024. He joined IIT in August last year.