In one of the saddest cases of irony, a 17-year-old engineering student, who committed suicide after being marked failed in an examination, was declared successful after re-evaluation, four months after his death.

Broken after learning that his university declared him as failed in his favourite subject of Physics, Mohammad Adnan Hilal, a 17-year-old electronics engineering student killed himself in Jammu and Kashmir. Shockingly enough, four months after his demise, it was found that Hilal had not only passed but had also topped his class in the following subject.

Friends and family claimed that physics was Hilal’s stronghold. Unfortunately, it was too late, as the first year student from Government Polytechnic College jumped to his death from River Jhelum, Srinagar. His body was recovered four days later.

His initial marks in Physics were 28, after the re-evaluation the marks stood 48 which added to his overall aggregate of 70% making him a class topper. The minimum pass mark in J&K is 33.

Adnan’s father, Hilal Ahmad Gilkar believes this to be a murder as he was forced to take an extreme step due to the callousness of some incompetent people in the system. Absolutely broken, Gilkar recalled how Adnan was confident on the day of his examination with the way his Physics paper went.  “He told me there was no continuation sheet at the examination center so he had to write the rest of the answers on another answer sheet. He was confident that he had done well. It is a murder and people responsible for it need to be identified and acted against as per the service rules of the government,” Gilkar, a guest faculty at Institute of Management and Public Administration (IMPA) said with tear-filled eyes.”

After the death of his son, Gilkar applied for re-evaluation of his son’s Physics answer paper and was pushed further into grief as Adnan was declared pass in the paper. The Jammu and Kashmir State Board of Technical Education (JKSBOTE), admitted their “mistake”, but not before saying that “such things happen in other universities as well”.

“His case was not a lone case. There were others as well who were declared as failed in the exams but then the re-evaluation process declared them as passed. We have a transparent re-evaluation system where the papers are checked by two experts. These things happen in other universities as well,” secretary, JKSBOTE, Nazir Hussain Malik, said.

Gilkar has decided not to back down and take legal action against the authorities for callousness. “I will fight for justice. I will highlight this issue and take legal action against the authorities because their follies have claimed an innocent student’s life,” he said.