The body of Tripura teenager Sneha Debnath was recovered from the Yamuna River on Sunday after a 6-day absence.
The 19-year-old Delhi University student, living at South Delhi's Paryavaran Complex, had gone missing on July 7. According to the police, her last conversation with her family had taken place on the morning of her disappearance, shortly after which her phone was switched off—and remained as such.
In the call at about 6 AM, she had told them that she was going to the Sarai Rohilla railway station in Delhi with her friend Pitunia. Later, when they could not contact Sneha, and when Pitunia said she had not met with her that day, Sneha's parents filed a case, and launched a campaign to try finding her.
Following the registration of a missing person FIR at the Mehrauli Police Station on July 7, the police found a handwritten note at her residence, expressing intent to take her own life by jumping off the Signature Bridge, built across the Yamuna river, as per a PTI report. The investigation also revealed that she had been emotionally distressed for a while.
“I just feel like a failure and burden and it was getting unbearable to live like this ... I had decided to end my life by jumping from Signature Bridge," the letter (written in Sneha’s handwriting) said, as per an NDTV report. The note also stated that there was “no foul play” involved, and that it was “my decision".
During the investigation, the police had also traced Sneha's movements through technical surveillance and confirmed her last known location as the Signature Bridge. This was corroborated by the cab driver who dropped her there, as well as a few eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen a woman standing on the bridge and later disappearing from the spot.
In the ensuing search operation, launched with the help of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and local police units, her body was found 10km downstream from the Signature Bridge.
One of Sneha's friends claimed that none of the CCTV cameras on or around the Signature Bridge had been operational at the time she was spotted there, despite it being a "suicide-prone area".
