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Saturday, June 4, 2011

57 - 24th April 2009 - IIT Kharagpur student found hanging- The Telegraph

UR CORRESPONDENT
Calcutta, April 24: A fourth- year IIT Kharagpur student, studying an extra year to clear a backlog of exams, was found hanging in his hostel room.

Ramananda Rao K. from Andhra Pradesh was a resident of the Nehru Hall on the Kharagpur campus. Yesterday morning, the sweeper found him hanging from the ceiling fan in his room.

“The sweeper wanted to clean the room but he got no answer when he knocked. The door was not locked from inside so when he pushed it, the door opened and he found Rao hanging from a fan,” said U.P. Singh, the security officer of the institute.

“The police are investigating. It is difficult to say exactly what led to the suicide since there was no suicide note,” said Singh.

Rao’s friends said the student of chemical engineering had shown no sign of being depressed. “Rao’s friends told us the he had shown no sign of being depressed or troubled. He had played cricket with them (his friends) yesterday,” said Singh.

Institute authorities said Rao, who was the captain of Nehru Hall’s volley ball team, was popular among the students.

But deputy director Madhusudan Chakrabarty said Rao was studying an extra year because he had fared poorly in some subjects in his final year. “It is not possible to say why he committed suicide because he did not leave behind any note but it is possible that he was suffering from depression and frustration because he had not been able to clear his final year exams.”

Some of his hall mates said though Rao was good at sports, he was an average student and did not do too well in his exams.

A testimonial by Praveen, Rao’s friend from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, on the social networking site Orkut said: “Nanda (Ramananda) is a good friend of mine. Very

intelligent and fearless, he can do whatever he wants. (He) takes everything easy. He looked very careless but he has it in him. I hope he will reach the heights of life and stand like an Everest to all my JNV friends. I am very proud to share some years of my life with him.”