IIT scholar: Parents shocked, colleagues surprised

The family members of Pushpam Sinha, who was charged with rape and murder of a Nagaland girl in Delhi on Saturday, are shell-shocked. They are unable to believe that Pushpam, a good student all through his life, could commit such heinous crime.

The family members of Pushpam Sinha, who was charged with rape and murder of a Naga girl in Delhi on Saturday, are shell-shocked. They are unable to believe that Pushpam, a good student all through his life, could commit such heinous crime.

HT Image

Pushpam’s distraught father, Vijay Kumar Sinha, a retired officer of Hindustan Aeronautics, when contacted, refused to speak anything. “What can I say on this? The police is doing its job. I don’t have anything to speak on the matter. I don’t know what is the truth. Only my son and police will be able to tell it better,” he added.

The neighbours are also surprised. “He was never like this. He was a brilliant student. It is hard to believe that Pushpam could do it. We don’t know what exactly happened,” said a neighbour.

Pushpam worked for nearly 10 months at the Maulana Azad Engineering College, Patna, before moving to NIT and then to IIT, Delhi for his Ph.D. “He taught here for some time in the Department of Mechanics, though I don’t exactly remember much about him,” said college principal BK Azad.

The Head, Department of Mechanics, Masood Ahmad, under whom Pushpam worked, however, recalled him as a highly intelligent teacher. “We never had any complaint against him. Students also liked him, as he was very good at teaching and possessed excellent knowledge about mechanics,” he said.

Masood said that though Pushpam had a short stint with the college, he did look mentally disturbed. “His mannerisms and blunt style could rub some people the wrong way. Otherwise, as teacher he was very good. There was no incident reported against him,” he added.

Pushpam had estranged relationship with his wife and the two were living separately. A friend of Pushpam’s wife, who also lives in Patna, said that the two separated nearly a couple of years ago after the relationship deteriorated.

Patna Senior SP Vineet Vinayak said Delhi police was yet to contact him for getting details of Sinha’s background in Patna.