Calcutta, May 16: A bright first-year undergraduate student of St. Xavier's College allegedly jumped to his death from the college hostel last night.

Shoubhik Sinha, who was from Patna, had scored over 96 per cent in the CBSE Class XII board exams last year. Police and family members said the 20-year-old, the only child of his widowed mother, had chosen statistics over engineering as his grades in the Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations were not high enough to merit admission in a reputable government college.

Shoubhik, who allegedly jumped from the seventh-floor rooftop of the AJC Bose Road hostel around 9.10pm after dinner, was in the middle of writing his second semester. He had appeared for one of his papers on Tuesday.

Shoubhik lost his father when he was three years old. Family sources said his mother Shobha had quit her schoolteacher's job in 2001 and some of her relatives helped her sustain her family.

Shobha, who rushed to Calcutta after receiving the news of Shoubhik's death, said outside the morgue at NRS Medical College Hospital: "I had spoken to him on Tuesday and he said his exam paper had gone off well. I found nothing unusual and he did not sound upset. He had two more papers, on May 18 and May 25."

Shoubhik was supposed to return home to Patna on May 26.

Shoubhik's college friends and family members said he was a very good student. "He had no arrears (failure to clear papers) and no issues in terms of classes. He was a quiet boy and kept to himself," a source at St. Xavier's College said.

Shoubhik had passed out of St. Michael's High School in Patna and used to live with his mother. "His mother had wanted to shift with him to Calcutta after he took admission in St. Xavier's but he had said he would live in the college hostel," said an uncle of Shoubhik.

A police officer said they had gathered from some of his friends that he was upset at not being able to pursue engineering.

One of Shoubhik's uncles in Patna said the student had chosen statistics at St. Xavier's over engineering in a private college. "He had got through private engineering colleges in Calcutta but he had said he would rather study statistics at Xavier's. He wanted to do master's after completing his graduation," said his uncle Saurabh Ghosh.

An officer of Beniapukur police station said: "According to some of Shoubhik's classmates, he was a loner and seemed a little upset of late because of his financial incapability to pursue engineering."

"Till now, it appears to be a case of suicide with no foul play involved. There was also no apparent trigger in the past few days that could have prompted him to end his life."

According to the family sources, Shobha had called up Shoubhik several times yesterday but he did not take the calls.

The police said they were examining Shoubhik's mobile phone to find out who he had spoken to before his death.

Shoubhik's Facebook account has photographs of him keeping wickets and with a bat. According to the account, he liked Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. Some of the movies he had liked were Whiplash and Birdman. He preferred songs of Kishore Kumar and Iron Maiden.