SVU lady professor found dead in campus quarters

TIRUPATI: A woman associate professor of Sri Venkateswara University was found dead in mysterious circumstances in her residential quarters on the campus here on Saturday.The death of M Shyamala (54) of the department of education in Quarter No. 49 in Red Buildings came to light when her research scholar, K Sudhakar (32), went to her residence at around 10:45 and found it   bolted from outside but not locked. He opened the door and went inside. ``I saw the sofa in the hall a bit askew and saw madam's hugely swollen leg. I was frightened and ran back to the campus and informed our head of the department Sudhakar Reddy who, in turn, alerted the vice-chancellor and others,'' he said.Soon the police were alerted and West DSP K Malyadri, along with university campus circle inspector T Sainath and his men, rushed to the spot. Clues teams also arrived.Speaking to mediapersons, Malyadri said that Shyamala, who lived in the quarters alone, was found dead by her research students on Saturday morning. ``Her body was in a decomposed state and the upper portion of her face and the hands were discolored. There were, however, no external injuries on the body. She might have been dead either on the night of June 30 or in the early hours of July 1,'' he said and added that added that whether it was a case of suicide or homicide could be ascertained only after the receipt of postmortem report.Shyamala hailed from East Godavari district and lived with her husband M Janardhan Rao in Visakhapatnam while working at Andhra University. She joined the SV University as associate professor in the department of education in 2007. Rao was an employee of SBI in Visakhapatnam and took voluntary retirement some years ago and is running an old age home. The couple do not have children and her husband used to visit Shyamala in Tirupati occasionally. She was allocated the university quarters two year ago.Ravikumar from Anantapur and Netaji from Nalgonda, who were doing M.Phil under her supervision, went to meet her on July 1. ``We had completed our dissertation and needed her signature. When we called her up, she asked us to come down to Tirupati. Yesterday, when we came, the door was bolted from outside. We tried to contact her on her mobile but it was switched off. We looked for her on the campus, thinking that she might be there as the convocation was in progress. But she was not there. We came again yesterday evening and found the situation the same. This morning we came again and when there was no response, we went to the department and met her PhD student Sudhakar and informed him. He came and found her dead in the house,'' Netaji recounted to Express.Shyamala was last seen on the campus on the evening of June 30 when she attended a function held to give farewell to rector K Rathnaiah and some faculty members who retired.Her colleagues describe Shyamala as a nice person who mingled well with others. Saying that she was well off, they find no reason for her to commit suicide and suspect that she might have been killed for gain.