Jamshedpur, April 28: Tall, dark and reserved. A second-year student of mechatronics (a multi-disciplinary engineering course) at RD Tata Technical Education Centre in Golmuri with 96 per cent attendance. Attentive in class and respectful to teachers, not very friendly, but close to his family of parents and sisters. Possessive about his bike and cellphone.

Hardly the portrait of a killer. But this was Bijendra Prasad before he entered St Xavier’s College with a khukuri yesterday afternoon with the aim to kill the girl he had perhaps loved.

He seemed normal enough. The reticent youth, at 7am yesterday, had called his section in charge Deepak Sarkar to say he was unwell. “He called up and said he would visit a doctor but would attend classes if he felt better. When I heard the news, I couldn’t sleep at night,” said Sarkar.

The double-storeyed, well-maintained house with lace curtains in Sonari’s Budhram Colony is a picture of normalcy. This is the house where Tata Steel employee Raghunandan Prasad and wife Yamini raised their four children, Bijendra and three sisters.

Younger sister Julie said her bhaiya used to speak with Khusboo on phone for hours, but they stopped speaking since the past two months. “Bhaiya started interacting more with us and became more studious,” she said.

He didn’t get closer to classmates though. “He never spoke about his personal life. We don’t know if he is on Orkut or Facebook,” said Sumit Sharma, one of the 69 students.

“I saw the news on TV and realised it is our student. He was soft-spoken and polite, unlike rowdy boys. You think such boys may commit murders, but not Bijendra,” said Varun Kumar, senior administrative officer of the college.

Expert opinion differs. “He may have been suffering from personality disorder. If intense feelings are not shared, they explode,” said A.K. Mishra, retired TMH psychiatrist.