A few days ago, news emerged that a student at Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology had allegedly taken his own life in his hostel room before Sehri. Ruslan Hussain, a first-year computer science student from Mardan, was reportedly alone in his room when the incident occurred. Officials later said he was found hanging. The reports were brief and clinical, as they often are. Another tragic headline that briefly flashes across our timelines before disappearing into the constant churn of news.
But if you pause and look at the past few months alone, a troubling pattern begins to emerge.
In Lahore, at the University of Lahore, a 22-year-old Pharm-D student, Muhammad Awais Sultan, died after jumping from the fourth floor of a university building in December. Reports say he suffered critical head and neck injuries and was rushed to the university’s attached hospital, where he later died. Only weeks later, in January, another first-semester pharmacy student reportedly jumped from the second floor of the same university building, sustaining injuries.
And then there are the stories that do not involve police reports but still reveal something deeply unsettling about campus culture.
Take Abdul Rehman Asim, a young influencer who had secured admission to National College of Arts in Lahore—an institute many students dream of entering. Getting into NCA is no small feat. Yet barely a month after joining, Asim uploaded a video explaining why he was dropping out. His reason was simple and stark: the bullying culture he experienced there. What was perhaps more revealing than the video itself were the comments underneath it—dozens of people sharing similar stories of intimidation, humiliation, and hostility from peers and even faculty.
On the surface, these incidents may seem unrelated. Different universities. Different circumstances.
But together they force us to confront a question we rarely ask seriously enough: what is actually happening inside our universities?
University life is often romanticized as the beginning of freedom. For many young people, it is the first time they leave home, live in hostels, make their own decisions, and figure out who they want to be. Parents send their children off believing campuses will nurture their growth and guide them toward a better future.
But that transition can also be profoundly destabilizing.
First-year students arrive in unfamiliar cities, surrounded by strangers, navigating academic pressure unlike anything they faced in school. Some struggle quietly with loneliness. Others face intense competition, financial stress, or family expectations. And then there are campus cultures where ragging, humiliation, or subtle bullying are dismissed as part of “building character.”
In such an environment, the absence of meaningful mental health support can become dangerous.
Mental health remains one of the most neglected conversations in Pakistani universities. Many campuses either lack professional counseling services altogether or offer them in ways students are hesitant to use. Even where services exist, stigma often prevents students from approaching them. Seeking psychological help is still widely misunderstood as weakness rather than self-care.
This is where the responsibility of universities becomes impossible to ignore.
Institutions cannot limit their role to delivering lectures and conducting exams. Universities house thousands of young people during one of the most vulnerable phases of their lives. They shape not only careers but also identities, confidence, and emotional resilience. When students live in hostels, study under intense pressure, and spend most of their time on campus, the university effectively becomes their environment, their community, and sometimes their entire world.
With that influence comes responsibility.
The uncomfortable truth is that universities are not just academic institutions—they are social ecosystems. The culture they cultivate matters as much as the curriculum they teach. A campus that prides itself on prestige, merit lists, and rankings cannot afford to ignore the everyday experiences of the students living within its walls.
Universities must actively cultivate cultures where bullying—whether from peers or faculty—is taken seriously rather than brushed aside. They must create accessible counseling services staffed by trained professionals, not token offices that exist only on paper. Orientation programs should prepare students for the emotional challenges of university life, not just the academic ones. Faculty members should be trained to recognize distress and respond with empathy rather than indifference.
Most importantly, campuses must foster an atmosphere where students feel safe asking for help.
But addressing this crisis requires a far more holistic approach than simply setting up counseling offices or issuing anti-bullying policies. Universities must begin to see the student body itself as part of the solution. Every campus has informal leaders — the students others naturally turn to for advice, support, or reassurance. They may be seniors in hostels, active members of societies, or simply people who command trust within their peer groups. Often, these students do not even realize the influence they hold. Universities, faculty members, and counseling services should work together to identify and engage these individuals, empowering them as part of a structured peer-support system. Such programs would not turn students into informants or “moles,” but rather into trained allies who can recognize signs of distress, isolation, or harmful ragging culture early on and guide their peers toward help. In many cases, students are far more likely to confide in someone they trust within their own circle than approach an authority figure. If universities truly want to understand what is happening within hostels, classrooms, and student communities, they must collaborate with these informal leaders. Only by building partnerships between faculty, counselors, and the student body can campuses begin to detect problems before they escalate into crises. Because the reality is that safeguarding student well-being cannot rest on counseling services alone — it requires an entire campus culture that actively looks out for one another.
Because behind every headline about a student who jumped, fell, or was found alone in a hostel room lies a quieter question: did anyone notice what they were going through?
Pakistan’s universities often celebrate their rankings, their alumni, and their historic legacies. But a truly great institution is not defined only by the success stories it produces. It is defined by how well it protects and supports the students who are still finding their way.
Until mental health is treated as a core responsibility rather than an afterthought, these uncomfortable questions will continue to return—again and again—with every new tragedy that forces us to look.
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