Nearly 300 students protested; IIT Delhi gives Rishikesh Kumar’s death an outside five, two weeks, and no cause.

The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi on Tuesday, 25 August 2026, formed a five-member External Inquiry Committee into the circumstances leading to the death of Rishikesh Kumar, a Master of Science Physics student. Public desks put his age at 31. The Institute acted after a protest of nearly 300 students. A protest is a campus fact. It is not a finding of institutional culpability. This desk will not infer a cause of death before the inquiry reports.

The members locked on this file are former Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar, All India Institute of Medical Sciences psychiatry head Professor Pratap Sharma, two student representatives, and the Registrar as secretary-convenor. Five is the count: two named outsiders, two unnamed student representatives, and the Registrar in the secretary-convenor chair. Rangan Banerjee is a name locked on this Institute file. The facts do not write a statement or a designation for that name. This desk will not invent one.

The panel will review records, protocols and processes, speak to relevant people, and report within two weeks. Two weeks is the Institute’s deadline as locked here. This page will not invent a calendar date the tip does not print, a terms-of-reference annex, or a leaked first finding. Speaking to relevant people is a mandate. It is not a published witness list.

Police said no suicide note was recovered. Absence of a note is a police line. It is not a medical cause and it is not a finding that the death was or was not suicide. This desk will not infer cause from the absence of a note, and it will not infer institutional culpability from a protest of nearly 300 students. Those inferences are refused.

An external panel after a student death is an Institute step. It is not a police chargesheet and it is not a coroner’s verdict. Former police and psychiatry chairs on the five are expertise the Institute named. They are not a finding that the death was criminal or psychiatric. Two student representatives keep a campus seat on the same five. Their names are not on this tip. This desk will not invent them.

New Delhi holds the Institute. Form B and any poll date are not notified. Until the five report, the public ledger is a Tuesday External Inquiry Committee of five, a named student — Rishikesh Kumar, Master of Science Physics, age 31 on the public desks — a protest of nearly 300 students, a former Uttarakhand Director General of Police and an All India Institute of Medical Sciences psychiatry head as the two named outsiders, two student representatives, the Registrar as secretary-convenor, a two-week report clock, a police line that no suicide note was recovered, and a name, Rangan Banerjee, without a designation this desk will invent. No cause is written. No culpability is written.