Rohith Vemula was found hanging in the hostel from where he was banned
Before he hanged himself in the hostel from where he had been banned two weeks ago, research scholar Rohith Vemula wrote a long note in which he said: "No one is responsible, no one has instigated me. Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone."
He also requested that his family be given his fellowship funds - one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees for seven months. "Please see to it that my family is paid that," wrote the 26-year-old, whose family in Guntur reportedly worked hard to fund his studies in Hyderabad.
Rohith had been living in a tent outside the gates of the Hyderabad Central University after he and four other scholars were asked to stay away from the hostel, the mess and other common areas on December 21.
On Sunday, as students planned protests, Rohith quietly moved away and went into a hostel room where he was later found hanging.
Rohith's mother, a tailor, wondered why no one told the family what he was going through.
In his note, he spoke about "a growing gap between my soul and my body."
"And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write," he said.
"I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense."
Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya has been charged with aiding his suicide; students allege that his letter to Education Minister Smriti Irani in August compelled the university to punish Rohith and his comrades for allegedly attacking an activist of a rival student union, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in August.
Those who dispute that charge say Rohith sounded depressed in his letter.
"My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past," he writes.
"I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That's pathetic. And that's why I am doing this."