IIT students complained about Sinha

NEW DELHI: IIT PhD scholar Pushpam Kumar Sinha, accused of killing a teenage Naga girl from Manipur, is also facing an inquiry for alleged indecent behaviour with female students at IIT. "The complaint against Sinha was filed on September 18 by first and second year girl students of civil engineering branch. They alleged that Sinha used to pass lewd remarks and stare at them on the campus. Two senior professors are probing the allegations,'' said a senior police officer.

During interrogation, Sinha is also reported to have told cops that he was married to a Patna girl in 2003. "But after his wife deserted him in July 2008, he was filled with frustration. After his wife, an MSc in environment sciences and presently residing in Patna, left him, Sinha took up PhD in IIT Delhi in October 2008. The couple have no children,'' said the officer.

According to the police, Sinha has confessed to his crime. Police said that the accused told them that he was desperate to talk to the girl and had developed fancy notions about her. On Friday night, a day before the murder, he approached her room several times, knocking on the door seven times between 3pm and 5pm when Ramchanphy Hongray was alone. But a scared Hongray locked herself inside the room.

Cops believe that the cold response from Hongray angered Sinha, who decided to teach her a lesson on Saturday when she was alone. He allegedly strangled Hongray on Saturday and burnt her face to make it look like an accidental death. But postmortem report hinted at strangulation after which Sinha was arrested on Sunday. On Tuesday, he was produced before a city court which remanded him in judicial custody till November 10.

Sinha initially tried to mislead the police by claiming that he was not present when Hongray was found dead but the victim's elder brother, Yaokhalek, who discovered the body first on Saturday told police that he saw Sinha loitering near the stairs when he went to the house at 6.30pm on Saturday. "This raised our suspicion and we questioned him at length and after four hours of interrogation, Sinha confessed to the brutal murder,'' said an investigating officer.

On Tuesday, Sinha's another neighbour, a woman and her daughter, hailing from North-East, also vacated their rented accommodation in the same complex, said a cop.