V Ajay Sree Chandra (21), a PhD student and a native of Hyderabad, had allegedly committed suicide at the institute’s students’ hostel on August 27.

“The department is shocked. Till Monday evening, she was busy preparing for the comprehensive exam. In the night, I came to know about the incident,” said Ashok M Raichur, associate professor, Department of Materials Engineering, IISc.

He described Chithra as “hardworking, diligent and an excellent student. She was shy but not an introvert,” he said.She has not left behind a suicide note, said M R Mudhavi, inspector, Upparpet police. A case of unnatural death has been registered.

Chithra joined IISc in 2003 to pursue her post graduation (MSc). She enrolled for PhD one and a half years ago.
Her academic record was good. She had scored 6.0 in her master’s programme and 6.5 in PhD on a scale of eight under Grade Point Average (GPA).

“Chithra never displayed any signs of suicidal tendencies. We interact with students very often and can make out from their behaviour if they have a problem. In Chithra’s case, we didn’t notice any such change in behaviour,” he said. “She was well behaved; there were no complaints against her,” Mr Ashok said.Though the institute has a counselling cell for students, neither Ajay nor Chithra attended the counselling session.

“We don’t have their names in our records,” said consultant psychiatrist Dr Ghorpade at the IISc health centre. IISc Chief Medical Officer Dr Nagabhushan said Chithra didn’t show any signs of “depression or shutting down. We recently relaunched online counselling after Ajay’s suicide. Many students communicate with Dr Ghorpade in confidence. Chithra never sought counselling,” he said. “Most mails I receive from students are related to love affairs; some to academic or family problems, including financial and occupational problems. There are, however, few students, who don’t like to share their problems at all,” he said.

She said no to marriage

Chithra’s parents — Ramalingam, a retired ITI teacher and Tamil Selvi — are ailing.  She had three siblings.
According to her brother Ramesh Babu, his parents wanted Chithra to get married but she refused because she wanted to pursue higher studies.

“They had been pressing her for the last seven years but she firmly opposed to marriage. She visited her home this Diwali and stayed there for three days, during which she had an argument with her parents on the issue, and since then she didn’t speak to them,” said  Upparpet police station inspector Mudhavi.

An occupant of room number 15 in Rohini Hostel, IISc campus, Chitra spent her time studying. She was also fond of playing the veena and was religious by nature. A lone veena standing in the corner of her neatly-kept room and some pictures of Gods and Sai Baba bore testimony to her interests.

According to police, Chitra had written two phone numbers on her palm. One of the numbers  was that of her hostel mate Gunasundari.