By Crystal Chan

ANOTHER death has occurred at the Nanyang Technological University within a week - and the uncanny coincidences goes beyond the timing.

Mr Zhou Zheng, 24, a Chinese national from Hubei, was found hanging in the balcony of his apartment at NTU on Friday night - just five days after Mr David Hartanto Widjaja leapt to his death.

Mr Widjaja, 21, an Indonesian final-year undergraduate, slit his wrists and jumped to his death after stabbing his project supervisor, Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk.

Chatrooms yesterday were abuzz with the eerie coincidences.

Both Mr Zhou and Mr Widjaja are said to have worked in the same lab.

Same lab

Checks by The New Paper on Sunday showed that the lab where Mr Zhou worked was where Mr Widjaja worked on his final-year project.

The Information System Research Lab is in unit B3a-06 in Block S2, next to the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in NTU.

Mr Widjaja's project focused on using multiple cameras to obtain multiple views of a scene. The project involved adapting 3-D displays to the viewer's position.

Like Mr Widjaja, Mr Zhou studied in the same school and graduated with second-upper honours last July.

And the day Mr Zhou joined NTU as a project officer was the day the earlier tragedy happened.

Mr Zhou's job involved helping academics in carrying out research projects.

But, unlike Mr Widjaja, who was described by some hostel neighbours as a loner, Mr Zhou was active in extra-curricular activities.

In 2005 and 2006, Mr Zhou was the welfare secretary of NTU's French Society, which promotes French culture on the campus.

Police told The New Paper on Sunday that they received a call at 10.40pm on Friday.

Mr Zhou was already unconscious when the police arrived at the flat, which he shared with some colleagues.

Police spokesman Liu Xiangling said: 'His flatmates had already brought him down to the floor and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene at 10.55pm.'

It was a tragic end to what seemed to be a promising future for Mr Zhou.

The New Paper on Sunday understands that upon graduation, Mr Zhou began working for IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between chip-making heavyweights Intel and Micron Technology.

IM Flash even sent Mr Zhou to its US headquarters in Lehi, Utah, for training in August last year as it planned to build a wafer fabrication plant in Singapore.

The global downturn put an abrupt end to the plan.

Retrenched last year

Mr Zhou was one of 500 IM Flash staff who were retrenched on 13 Oct last year.

In Mr Widjaja's case, he was reportedly troubled after his Asean scholarship was terminated.

Mr Zhou's family, who are still in Hubei, have been informed about his death.

It is understood that NTU has relocated Mr Zhou's flatmates to another apartment on campus as they were traumatised by the incident.

Mr Zhou's unit is in Block 101C in Nanyang Heights which houses teaching staff and graduate students.

When The New Paper on Sunday visited the fourth-storey apartment yesterday, it was sealed with red-and-white tape.

Neighbours who spoke to The New Paper on Sunday said they did not know Mr Zhou well as the residents tend to keep to themselves.

A resident from India, who asked to be called Mr Raj, said: 'It's difficult for us to interact except to say 'Hi' because of the language barrier.'

Shocked

Electrical engineering undergraduates whom we spoke to said they did not know Mr Zhou and expressed shock at the second tragedy to hit NTU this week.

Mr Andrew Ng, 26, said: 'Really? Serious? Two incidents this week?

'But... Mr Zhou could have been depressed for a while.'

NTU said counsellors and senior university officers were immediately deployed to offer support, help and counsel where needed.

The university added that every assistance would be given to Mr Zhou's family.

This article was first published in The New Paper.