IIT Kanpur PhD Student Kills Herself; 3rd Case Of Suicide In A Month

Kanpur: A PhD student of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her hostel room on Thursday.

It was the third case of suicide in the institute in a month.

The research scholar, identified as 29-year-old Priyanka Jaiswal, was from Jharkhand’s Dumka.

According to police, Priyanka’s father Narendra Jaiswal contacted the manager of her hostel when his daughter was not answering phone calls.

On reaching her room, the hostel manager, Ritu Pandey, found the door locked from inside. With Priyanka not opening the door for a long time, Pandey got security persons to break into the room.

They discovered Priyanka’s lifeless body hanging from a ceiling fan and informed police immediately.

Police personnel and a forensics team arrived at the spot, recovered the body and sent it for post-mortem.

It was learnt that Priyanka had joined the PhD programme in Chemical Engineering just three weeks ago.

Last month, 34-year-old research scholar Pallavi Chilka ended her life in her hostel room at IIT Kanpur.

On January 10, an M.Tech student Vikas Kumar Meena was found hanging in his hostel room in the same campus. He was “under stress” for several days after failing in his programme, police said.