Muthukrishnan was an MPhil student in Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Highlights
- 27-year-old MPhil student found dead in locked room
- A Dalit, he had written about discrimination in last Facebook post
- Not clear if discrimination a factor, may have been depressed: Police
A 27-year-old research scholar from Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU has allegedly committed suicide. Muthukrishnan, who had a Masters' Degree from Hyderabad University was an MPhil student in JNU. Police say no suicide note has been found yet and added that he may have been depressed for personal reasons.
In one of his last Facebook posts, Muthukrishnan, a Dalit, had spoken against discrimination. "There is no equality in MPhil/PhD admission, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality... denying students protest places in ad (administrative) block, denying the education of the marginals. When equality is denied everything is denied (sic)," he wrote.
But the police said it was not yet sure if discrimination at the university was a factor in his death, Press Trust of India reported.
Police said it received a call this evening that Muthukrishnan had locked himself in a room in Delhi's Munirka Vihar. On reaching the spot, they forced open the door and a young man was found hanging from the ceiling fan. The crime team was called to the spot and the scene was inspected and photographed.
"He had come to his friends' house this afternoon to have food. He said he wanted to sleep and went to a room and locked himself inside. Later his friends called him out and on getting no response, they called the police," a senior police said.
"He belongs to a really poor family. He had told me that there were financial problems, academic pressures and personal issues as he had shared with me before," a second-year JNU student told news agency ANI.