Japanese student found dead in IIT Guwahati hostel

Guwahati: Panic was rife on the campus of Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati on Thursday evening when a student from Japan was found dead inside a hostel room. Identified as Kota Onoda, the student was at IIT-Guwahati for an internship. He was a student of Gifu University in Japan. The youth was found dead inside room number 142 of Lohit hostel. The college officials suspect that it could be a case of suicide.

Onoda was part of the student exchange program and was doing an internship in the department of Bio-Sciences and Bio-Engineering in IIT-Guwahati as part of the program. His internship was scheduled to end on November 30 this year.

A top official of IIT-Guwahati said that his friends on campus tried contacting him on his mobile phone. When his phone was switched off for a long time, they went to his room and found his dead body hanging from the ceiling. The authorities were contacted immediately. Once the authorities were alerted, the local police was called into campus immediately, according to official statements from the university. The local police rushed to the campus to recover the Japanese student's dead body in the hostel room.

North Guwahati Circle Officer, Pranab Dutta Goswami, said: "We have received information that a student from Japan was found dead inside room number 142 of Lohit hostel. Immediately, a police team reached the spot and recovered the body from the room. We are suspecting that the student has committed suicide.

The police said that a preliminary inquiry was done and the body has been sent for post-mortem. By the initial examination, it seems that the student had committed suicide in the room. "We have conducted our preliminary inquiry procedure and the body has been sent for post-mortem," said the official.

The police stated that no suicide note was found in the deceased's room.