Mangalore: Professor found dead at YMCA hostel, suicide suspected

Pics: Ramesh Pandith
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Updated

Mangalore, Feb 6: Author and mathematician Prof Stephen Vadakkan was found dead at YMCA hostel here on Thursday February 6.

The deceased, Prof Stephen Vadakkan (61), was the son of the late Joseph Mathew and was staying at Doopadakatte, Karkala.

Sources said that he had been staying at the hostel since January 31.

The watchman, while passing by his room in the hostel, sensed a foul smell emanating from the room. On checking, the professor was found dead and his body was decomposed.

It is not known when exactly he died. It is suspected that he might have committed suicide.

Sources said that he left behind a letter in which he asked that the hostel fee be paid.

Police said that his son is on his way from Karkala to Mangalore. He had divorced his wife, police sources said.

Kadri police have registered a case and investigation is on.

Prof Stephen Vadakkan had done his pre-university at St Aloysius in 1969-70. After completing his bachelor of science at Kuwait University in 1977 with a rank, he went on to do double postgraduate degree courses in Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, following it up with his PhD. He studied Cryptography and Communications Security under the world renowned Prof F C Piper of the University of London.

He returned to Kuwait and worked as a research associate at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and for Kuwait Air Force/Air Defense, and also as a consultant for various commercial ventures.

During the Gulf War (1990-91) he returned to India. For a brief period he was an honorary visiting faculty member and reader (associate professor) of computer engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal.

He was a writer and philosopher. He had discovered and proved the exact formula for the perimeter of the ellipse. He also found a novel, simple and accurate way for constructing and n-secting a 60° angle. He was the nephew of Fr Joseph Vadakkan, the famous social reformer of Thrissur in Kerala.