A PhD student at IIT Kanpur with “outstanding academic qualifications” was found hanging inside his hostel room on Tuesday night.

Police have said on the basis preliminary information gathered during the questioning of other students that Prashant Singh, 32, pursuing research in mechanical engineering, was an introvert who largely kept to himself and interacted with only a handful of hostel inmates.

Prashant, who hailed from Varanasi, was found hanging by a bedsheet. The police suspect it to be a case of suicide. No suicide note has been found. Ashok Shukla, additional commissioner of police of the Kalyanpur area of Kanpur city, said: “Some other students had knocked at the door of Prashant’s room (No. 111 in Hall No. 8) at 9pm when they were going to the mess. The students informed the college administration when they didn’t get a response.

“Later, the students and some staff members forced the door open and saw him hanging from the ceiling by a bedsheet. He was taken to the institute hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.”

Prashant’s father Pradeep Kumar Singh, a resident of Ashok Vihar Colony in Varanasi, rushed to Kanpur after learning about his son’s death.

He said Prashant had joined a master’s course at IIT Kanpur in 2019 and enrolled for PhD in 2021.

Ashutosh Sharma, security officer at IIT Kanpur, said: “His friends had gone to his room as usual to ask him to accompany them to the mess for dinner, but there was no response from inside. They knocked at the door many times between 9pm and 9.30pm and then called us. The door opened when some of the students pushed it forcefully in our presence.”

The police have seized Prashant’s cellphone and laptop. Shukla, the ACP, said: “The mobile phone of the student is locked (password-protected). We are trying to open it to understand his activities just before he apparently hanged himself. We have also recovered his laptop and deployed a forensic team to probe the case.”

Prashant’s body has been sent for post-mortem, which will be performed by a panel of three doctors and videographed.IIT Kanpur said in a statement that Prashant was a student with “outstanding academic qualifications”.

Several incidents of death by suicide have been reported at IIT Kanpur in the past few years. Ganga Patnam Suman, an MTech final-semester student, had killed himself in January 2009. Madhuri Sale, a fourth-year civil engineering student, was found hanging from the ceiling of her room in November 2010.Mehtab Ahmad, a BTech second-semester student, was found hanging inside his hostel room in September 2011. Arun Kumar Sharma, a PhD scholar, had slit his wrist in June 2015. He survived.Bhim Singh, a PhD scholar, was found hanging in April 2018. In July 2020, Pramod Subramaniyam, an assistant professor of computer and engineering, had died by suicide in a hostel.