IIT Professor drowns trying to save son after selfie fall

An IIT Kharagpur professor drowned while trying to rescue his four-year-old son, who had fallen into a water body, in West Midnapore district of West Bengal, on Sunday.

Joydip Bhattacharjee – an assistant professor, Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture at IIT Kharagpur – had taken took his two kids for a stroll near the campus to spend some time with them.

One of his children slipped into the water body while taking a selfie. Joydip drowned in an attempt to save his son.

“He lost his balance while pulling his son out of the water. Locals rushed and took both of them out. They were rushed to a nearby hospital but Joydip was declared brought dead. His son is stable,” said a police officer.

“His body has been sent for post mortem examination and we are going to issue an order requesting people not to venture close or take selfies close to the water body,” the officer added.

IIT-Kharagpur’s registrar, Pradip Ghosh, said the entire faculty and students are in a state of shock after the incident. “We don’t have words to describe our pain. It is a big loss for us and the entire teaching community are with his family members,” he said.

India has witnessed far more selfie deaths than any other country between March 2014 and September 2016. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Indraprastha Institute of Information Delhi in a collaborative study - Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths - claimed that out of 127 reported selfie deaths, 76 happened in India.

Source: News18