Bhubaneswar, July 19: An engineering student and a schoolteacher today committed suicide in the city in two separate incidents.

Hrudananda Behera, 58, the teacher and a native of Kakatpur in Puri district, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room this morning in Chakeisiani area on the city outskirts. Behera had been staying alone following a dispute with other family members. Around 8am, the owner of the house in which Behera was staying saw through the window that the teacher had been hanging from the ceiling. He informed the Mancheswar police.

Dhulia Mohanty, Behera’s landlord, said the teacher had been staying in the house for the last two years. “He used to drink for which his wife frequently quarrelled with him. Before Raja in June, his wife had left him and was staying at her father’s place,” said Mohanty. He said though his wife had returned sometime ago after he promised to give up the habit, nothing changed and she went back.

Behera, who was a teacher of Vir Surendra Sai Upper Primary School in VSS Nagar area, had a daughter studying biotechnology in a city college and a son staying in Keonjhar after marriage.

The local residents said they had seen Behera in the morning before he committed suicide. “I had seen him having his morning tea at a nearby tea kiosk. But, later when I saw he was hanging from the ceiling,” said the Mohanty. The Mancheswar police registered an unnatural death case and handed the body to the family members after post-mortem.

In another incident, Abhijit Das, 18, who had recently taken admission in a BTech (civil engineering) course in a city college, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at the Vani Vihar railway station.

Das, son of a businessman, lived at Sastri Nagar. The family members said he had left home last evening telling his mother that he was going to a friend’s house at the Press colony. However, the police said Das had not landed up at his friend’s place. The Government Railway Police recovered the body from the railway tracks and seized his mobile phone and a bag containing a diary. The police officer investigating the case said the diary had mention of Das’s love affair with a girl.

The police said the driver of the train had not submitted any “memo” about the incident at the next station. “Circumstantial evidence point to suicide,” said the officer. The body was handed over to the family members after post-mortem.