A young man hung himself from a ceiling fan at his rented house in Tinplate Colony of Jamshedpur in the small hours of Wednesday and the needle of suspicion points to jilted love.

Kunal Singh (23), a resident of Dhala Road in Golmuri thana area, was a heavy vehicle operator by profession and lived with his mother Vimla Devi. His elder brother Dilip Singh, an employee of Tinplate, stays in company quarters nearby.

Golmuri OC Srinivas Prasad said though Kunal had not left behind any suicide note, statement of family members and neighbours indicated that he had been depressed over a failed love affair. "People do strange things in love. He had an affair with a girl, but then they broke up. We cannot rule it out as a suicide trigger," the officer said.

Kunal, who operated an excavator, was found dead by his employer who knocked on his door around 7am when he did not report to work.

"Mother Vimla was at Dilip's quarters. When Kunal did not respond, his employer called landlord B.D. Mishra. Together they pushed a window open to find the youth hanging. He had used two gamchhas to improvise a noose," said OC Prasad.

Police later retrieved the body and sent it to MGM Medical College in Dimna for post-mortem.

Jeevan, a voluntary organisation working towards suicide prevention in the steel city, said the toll had risen to 166 since January. Kunal was the third person to kill oneself over failed love.