Chennai:
A final year medical student was found dead in the hostel room of his college in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
Parithi, a Dalit, was found hanging from the fan of his room at the Sree Moogambika Institute of Medical Sciences in Kanyakumari district by his friends.
His death comes amid a raging
controversy over the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student of Hyderabad Central University who hung himself in his hostel room in January.
No suicide note was found in Parithi's room. His postmortem report is awaited.
The student's father, a government officer, told local reporters that his son could not have committed suicide. "I don't think he had any reason to kill himself," he said.
Last month, three medical students were found dead in a well opposite their college in the Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. In their suicide note, the SVS College of Naturopathy and Yoga Sciences students had alleged inadequate infrastructure and ill treatment by the management.
The college principal was arrested in connection with the case.
Rohith hung himself days after he was banned from the hostel and other common areas on the campus for allegedly attacking an activist of the BJP-linked ABVP.
His death has triggered an acrimonious political debate around alleged caste discrimination in universities. Opposition parties allege that he was a victim of caste discrimination and that union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya forced the university to punish him.
The family also accused the minister of deliberately not talking about a letter that Rohith had written to the university days before his suicide, in which he had alleged discrimination and asked for "poison".