How emails selling a fake dream brought a youth’s drone crashing down

Sarvesh Sharma, a 20-year-old Computer Engineering student at Government Polytechnic College, fell from the third floor of his hostel on October 27 and is now undergoing surgery for multiple fractures at PGIMER, Chandigarh. Sarvesh believed he was on the verge of achieving his dreams when he received emails from what he thought was the Ministry of Defence, promising him a Rs 3.5-crore grant for his drone startup.

However, it was later revealed that the grant did not exist, leading to Sarvesh's fall from the hostel. His mother, Kalpana, accused the college management of not handling the matter with sensitivity, while his uncle, Vijay Kumar, expressed disappointment that the family was not informed before the media. The principal of the college, Chandersekhar, stated that Sarvesh did not share all the details with the institute management and questioned why the iDEX website was down shortly after the news broke.

The National Informatics Centre, which sent the emails, claimed that no such grant had been released, and the iDEX website was down due to hacking complaints.