Manipuri student hangs self before girlfriend in Bangalore

The girl,the police said,did not not take Jackio seriously when he began threatening suicide.

A 24-year-old student from Manipur allegedly hanged himself after a fight with his girlfriend in Bangalore Thursday night,less than a month after the death of fellow Manipuri Richard Loitam.

Jackio Singh Heisnam,24,a mechanical engineering student at the Bangalore Institute of Engineering,was upset with his girlfriend of three years,who is also from Manipur and is studying at a womens college in Bangalore,for not taking his calls for nearly a week.

In her statement,the 19-year-old girl said she tried to explain to Jackio after he took her to his room on Thursday evening that she had been busy with her exams but he did not listen.

The girl,the police said,did not not take Jackio seriously when he began threatening suicide. But when he hung himself with a wire,she rushed next door to call his friends. By the time they got him to St Johns Hospital around midnight police believe the suicide took place between 7:30 pm and midnight he was dead.

It looks like a straight case of suicide but we would like to finalise things only after some investigation of the circumstances of the incident and after speaking to the girlfriend and his friends who were near the scene of the suicide, said deputy commissioner of police P S Harsha. Jackios parents have been informed and they are expected soon in Bangalore.

Jackios death comes less than a month after Loitam,a 19-year-old architecture student at the Acharya Institute of Technology,died under mysterious circumstances allegedly after a brawl with two of his hostel mates.

Loitams death,and the subsequent protests,which are still continuing,against the polices failure to arrest the two suspects that forced the police to change the case from one of unnatural death to murder has put the spotlight on the issue of discrimination faced by students from the Northeast.

Protests against Loitams death continue

Story continues below this ad

Hundreds of students Friday rallied and staged a sit-in to protest the mysterious death of Richard Loitam on April 19,police said. A spokesman for All Manipur Students Union said they would launch a series of agitations if the Manipur and Karnataka governments did not intervene in the case soon.