A day before her Class XII Board examinations were to begin, the body of Poonam was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a room at her Mansarovar Park residence in north-east Delhi.

Though her suicide note blamed stress for the extreme step she had taken, her father Jitendra Singh, a lawyer, said he never put any pressure on his daughter to perform well.

Poonam was a student of Commerce stream in Shahadra Girls’ Government Senior Secondary School and mathematics was her optional subject. Her examination was scheduled to start on Monday with English being the first paper.

According to her suicide note, the police said, she particularly dreaded mathematics — the paper was scheduled for March 20.

Jitendra Singh saw the hanging body of Poonam around 6 pm and rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival.