An 18-year-old girl, who has been undergoing treatment for a heart problem, collpased and died on Wednesday while writing the Class XII examination at a school in Palakkad district of Kerala.

Anees Fathima fainted 30 minutes after the English examination started at the ASMM Higher Secondary School. The school authorities took her to a hospital but she died on the way. A doctor at the hospital said  that cardiac arrest could be the reason for the death as the girl had been under treatment for the last few months for a weak heart valve.

Anees’s mother Shahida had died of cardiac problems some months back, family sources said. The girl’s father Noor Muhammad, a farmer and a real estate broker, who was away in Mysore on a business trip, returned home on hearing about the tragedy, Anees’s relatives said.

After her mother’s death, Anees and her eight-year-old sister had been living with an uncle at nearby Tathamangalam, from where she had been attending the school. “She was good in studies and a good friend also. Sometimes, some students, especially girls, used to faint on getting question papers. We also took it like that initially,” said Manikantan, a student writing the examination in the same class.