Michi Marpu left Ziro with a dream. He came back in a coffin.
The 20-year-old BTech student from Arunachal Pradesh’s Lower Subansiri district was found dead in his rented flat in Kothamangalam, Kerala, on Saturday. A rope was around his neck. His college mates, who shared the accommodation, made the grim discovery. Police registered a case and are probing what exactly led to that moment — but the shadow of an unforgiving academic system already looms large over the investigation.
Kerala Steps In, Bears the Full Cost
To its credit, the Kerala government didn’t wait to be asked twice. Higher Education Minister Roji M John announced on August 17 that the state would take full responsibility for repatriating Marpu’s body to his family in Ziro. The Kerala government bore the entire cost of transporting the body, which was embalmed and flown from Kochi to Delhi on an IndiGo flight at 6 PM on Monday, and was then scheduled to be flown from Delhi to Donyi Polo Airport in Itanagar at 3:30 PM on August 18. The Kerala government also requested the Arunachal Pradesh administration to arrange an ambulance with a mobile freezer to receive the body at the airport. A small but meaningful gesture — making sure Marpu’s family didn’t have to scramble for logistics on top of their grief.
The Year-Back System in the Crosshairs
This tragedy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Police suspect Marpu may have feared losing an academic year due to a low credit score — a direct consequence of the year-back system introduced at MA College of Engineering in 2024, which stipulated that students failing to secure the required credits by their fifth semester would be moved back by a year. That policy began taking effect in 2026, hitting students entering their fifth semester this very year. Marpu was one of them.
Students at the college had been protesting against the system, alleging that the minimum credit requirement at MA College was higher than that prescribed by other engineering colleges in Kerala, and that the college continued to implement the year-back system even after KTU’s newly formed syndicate decided to temporarily suspend it. Minister John said he had spoken to college authorities and that an agreement had been reached to proceed in line with KTU’s regulations going forward. Too little, too late — for Marpu, at least.
A Family Waits in Ziro
Back in Ziro, a family is waiting. Not for their son’s results. Not for his graduation. Just for his body to come home. That is the reality that no policy review, no press statement, and no government arrangement can undo.
Michi Marpu was 20 years old. He should have had decades ahead of him. The question we all need to sit with is simple and devastating: what kind of system breaks a young person so completely that they see no way out?
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