Thiruvananthapuram, March 17: A medical student hanged himself in his hostel room after switching his web camera on so that the girl he loved could watch the suicide horror live.

Karthik, a second-year dental student at Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur, had adjusted the web camera to face the ceiling fan. When police broke into his room on March 13, it was still running.

The police have declined to disclose the identity and the address of the girl, who is Karthik’s cousin.

According to the police, relatives had opposed their affair, advising Karthik and the girl to concentrate on their studies. Initial investigation showed that Karthik used to chat with her. He keyed in his last message minutes before his death, but it was unclear if his girlfriend watched the suicide at her end.

“We can’t reveal the identity of the lover. We are in touch with her parents. We have sought the cyber crime department’s help to examine and decode some of the recent messages between the two,” investigating officer T. Uttam Das said.

“To my knowledge, this (case) is the first of its kind. An unfortunate incident, we don’t want to overplay it either,” inspector-general, cyber crime, Loknath Behra said.

Classmates said Karthik, who had lost two years in college, was reserved by nature and spent hours shut in his hostel room. “He was visibly disturbed in recent days. But we never thought he would take such an extreme step,” Arun Kumar, who was in Karthik’s class, said.

The police have seized Karthik’s PC, web camera and a mobile phone.

The police were tight-lipped about the case as the modus operandi could trigger similar attempts. Besides, it could encourage someone to blackmail his partner, the police fear.

Kerala tops the country’s suicide figures, and the rate is almost three times the national average.