A 20-year-old “former” IIT Guwahati student who had allegedly been asked to “vacate” his hostel room in July-August was found hanging in another room of the building on Sunday morning.

While police sources said Gudla Mahesh Sai Raj, who had been pursuing a BTech course, had been told to vacate his hostel room “due to academic reasons”, the IIT referred to him as a “young man” and a “former student” but did not give any details.

This is the second case of suspected suicide of a student at the IIT since September 16.

The police sources said on Sunday that Sai Raj, who had been missing since Thursday evening, was found hanging in an empty room of Lohit Hostel. Sai Raj was a fifth semester computer science student and hailed from East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, the sources said.

“We were informed about the development around 7am. It appears to be a case of suicide,” a police officer said, adding the deceased had been asked to “vacate the hostel in July-August owing to academic reasons”.

“However, he continued to stay in the hostel. The student went missing when he was told on October 6 to get permission from the authorities, who had terminated him (from the course), to stay on. We were informed about a missing terminated student,” the officer said.

IIT Guwahati said in a statement that the “body of a young man was found in one of the hostel buildings”.

“It has been identified as a former student of the institute. The institute has informed the family and they have reached the campus…. We will co-operate with the police investigation and will also commission an internal investigation…,” the statement said.

No detail about the deceased was offered.

The Union education ministry had told Parliament in 2019 that IIT Guwahati had reported 14 student deaths, including suicides, since 2014, the highest among the 23 IITs during that period.

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