Left behind: Yalavarthi Sweeya’s cellphone and glasses that were found on the terrace of Sri Dev Apartments at Patliputra in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Sept. 1: A 22-year-old student of IIT-Patna fell to her death around 9 this morning from the terrace of the girls’ hostel of the institute. Sources said she was depressed over low grades.

Yalavarthi Sweeya was a third-year student of computer science. She used to share flat number 401 of Sri Dev Apartments in Patliputra with another student. The four-storeyed building has been rented to IIT, Patna, and converted into a hostel for girl students. Around 40 girls live here.

No suicide note has, however, been found.

This morning, when the girls sat down for breakfast in the hostel mess, Sweeya was not among them. A search for her started immediately. Her body was discovered in the parking lot of the building on the ground floor. She lay in a pool of blood.

The students immediately alerted the officials of the institution, who rushed the injured girl to Sahyog Hospital in Patliputra. The doctors there referred her to Patna Medical College and Hospital, where she was declared brought dead.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Alok Kumar visited the spot.

“Prima facie, it appears to be suicide. The girl was a topper in school. But here, her marks had gone down a bit. She was very worried and slipped into a depression. She used to talk to her roommate about it. She used to say that her parents had a lot of hope pinned on her and she was not able to fulfil them. The institute also consulted a psychiatrist for her,” said the SSP.

He added that officials of Forensic Science Laboratory were looking for clues. The girl’s cellphone, glasses and slippers were discovered from the terrace of the building.

However, when the police reached the hostel around 10.30am, they found no bloodstains on the spot the girl had fallen. Sources said the janitor of the building had cleaned the stains. Police, however, claimed that water leaking from a drainage pipe nearby had washed them away.

“A 12-member team from Forensic Science Laboratory visited the spot to collect evidence. The girl’s body has been sent for post-mortem. Though it looks like a suicide, we will investigate the case from all angles. The other girls of the hostel are in a state of shock. They will be questioned later,” another police officer said.

Sweeya hailed from Hyderabad. Her father is a businessman, while her mother is a teacher. They arrived in the city this evening after being informed about the incident by the police. IIT authorities said the body would be handed over to them.

All the boarders of the hostel except — Sweeya’s roommate Pallavi, whom the police wanted to question — were shifted to the main campus. The SSP spoke to her but she continued to cry and was in no state to talk.

IIT, Patna, officials and the police claimed that Sweeya was suffering from depression for which she was being treated at Mahavir Vatsalya Hospital in Digha. “She was depressed for quite sometime because her examination grades were not good enough. She had discussed it with her roommate and her friends. As she was not well, she was also taken to Mahavir Vatsalya Hospital a week ago. Dr S.S. Jha was treating her. She was also given anti-depressants,” said Subhash Pandey, the registrar of IIT, Patna.

The officials of the hospital, however, did not confirm this. They said Sweeya had been treated for an eye problem on August 7, 2010. Jha, the director of the hospital, said the girl had not received any treatment from him. He added: “The hospital does not have a facility for psychiatric problems. I am an orthopaedic. The director of the institute did call me up a few days ago and asked me to refer a psychiatrist, which I did.”