MBBS student found dead in Dehradun hostel; classmates recall recent tension with close male friend

DEHRADUN: A 19-year-old first-year MBBS student at Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences was found dead in her hostel room in Dehradun on Friday, officials said. The student, a native of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, was found after hostel authorities alerted the police when she failed to respond for several hours and her room remained locked from inside. Officials later broke open the door and found her unresponsive. Dehradun SP (rural, Rishikesh) Jaya Baluni said, "No suicide note was recovered during the preliminary investigation. Her classmates said that she had been distressed for the past few days following disagreements with a close male friend, who is also 19 and from Muzaffarnagar. They spent considerable time together on campus." The SP added that the male friend was questioned and confirmed that the two had disagreements but denied knowing the exact reason behind the student's death. "We are examining her mobile phone and social media activity to ascertain the circumstances leading to her death. The body has been sent for postmortem and the student's parents have been informed," she said. Meanwhile, another police officer privy to the investigation said, on condition of anonymity, that the families of both the student and the male friend were aware of their friendship. "A few days ago, the girl's mother came to know that her daughter had also become friends with another classmate and asked her to stop interacting with him." the officer said. He added that the mother had allegedly asked the male friend to discourage her from speaking to other boys, which may have caused distress.