IIT-Hyderabad suicide? Forensic clue from gadgets hold the key

HYDERABAD: Police are waiting for the postmortem and cyber forensic report to check if there was any foul play in the death of IIT Hyderabad (IIT-H) postgraduate student B Rahul who was found hanging from the bed frame in the hostel room on the campus in Sangareddy district on Wednesday.
While the family has said they found it hard to believe that he could have hanged himself from the bed frame, police have maintained that the hostel room door was latched from inside and it was forcibly opened by IIT staff in the presence of a group of students.
Rahul (24) from Nandhyal town in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh was MTech II year student of Smart Mobility Department at IIT-H campus.

On Wednesday, a student, Sridharam Tiwari, informed assistant professor Lakshamana Dora Chandrala, who is the warden of Kautilya Hostel Block in IIT-H, that Rahul was neither opening his room door and nor answering the phone. As his room was bolted from inside, students peeped in through the gap below the door and noticed his feet on the floor.
When hostel staff along with security guards forcibly opened the door in the presence of students, they found Rahul lying on the floor with his head hanging from a nylon rope tied to the bed frame.
"They immediately closed the room and informed police. The room was again opened in the presence of police and an open notebook with a note 'See desktop/Important txt' and a stricken off note 'I feel my thesis is purposeless' was found," police mentioned in the FIR.
The mobile phone and the computer of the deceased were seized and forensic analysis is being done to find the text mentioned in the note.
Police said that Rahul spoke to his family on August 27, which was his birthday, and students said they last saw him on Monday night.
While Rahul's father Madhu Sudhana raised doubts about the nature of his son's death, police officials said that it appeared to be a case of suicide.
"Prima facie it's a clear case of suicide. However, we are not yet certain about the reason. We have sent his mobile phone and computer for forensic analysis and it may give us the reason. Viscera also has been sent to FSL. Once we get the postmortem report we will know the cause too," Sangareddy DSP Ravindar Reddy said.