By Sunday afternoon, almost 20,000 posts on X carried the hashtag #GoaLawandOrderDead, as netizens vented their anger over the alleged suicide of a 20-year-old student from Goa's BITS Pilani on Thursday.
This is the fifth such death to take place over the last 10 months.
According to the police, the second-year student was found dead in his hostel room at around 10:45AM on Thursday after the authorities forced their way into his room because he had not been responding to calls on his mobile phone.
While netizens claimed that he died by suicide, a postmortem report alleged that he had died in his sleep due to "mental health neglect", and that his death was not due to suicide.
"A probe is underway to find out the exact cause, Superintendent of Police (South) Tikam Singh Verma told PTI.
"Of the five deaths, three were due to suicide. Police held a meeting with the BITS Pilani management to discuss the issue. The management has assured that all precautionary measures will be taken to avoid such incidents," he added.
"Five young lives lost in Goa in just months—yet no accountability, only silence from CM and police," one user lamented.
"Fear is not freedom, it is slavery, Citizens of Goa cannot live like this, The system has abandoned its duty," another user wrote.
Five young lives have been lost in Goa within a short span — yet there’s no accountability, just silence from the Chief Minister and police," a third user pointed out.
"Goa has drugs in schools, deaths in campuses, fear in streets," a fourth user alleged.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant told reporters on Thursday that a committee was formed under the Collector to probe these incidents.
"Such incidents are unfortunate and should not reoccur. The state government will take further steps after receiving the report of the collector."