JNU student ‘suicide’ still a mystery, say police

Police are yet to figure out the reason for the suspected suicide of a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student who was found hanging from the ceiling fan in his friend’s room, officials said yesterday.
No suicide note was found, they said.
Krish Rajini, 25, whose real name was Muthukrishnan J, a resident of Jhelum Hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan in a room in Munirka Vihar area near the university on Monday evening.
“A team of Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) is probing the case and a thorough search is on with all possible angles. The police are also re-examining the sequence of events and Call Details Records (CDR) and chat records of Rajini. A team of CFSL with other senior officers would again visit the flat,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Ishwar Singh said.
The police also claimed so far they have not found any evidence indicating foul play and said that the CFSL examination reports will help them ascertain if it was a suicide or homicide.
Rajini was a student of history and was doing M Phil from the university. He had reportedly gone out to have food at his friend’s house and had locked himself in the room afterward on the pretext of sleeping.
Speculation is rife among the student fraternity about the possible reason for his suicide, with many saying he was suffering from depression over caste discrimination.
A Facebook post purported to be written by Rajini is also being circulated by some of his friends, in which the student expressed his disaffection over many issues, including denial of equality and non-implementation of recommendations of the Thorat committee.
“When equality is denied everything is denied. There is no Equality in M Phil or Ph D admission, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality. Denying Prof Sukhdeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest in ad-block, denying the education of the marginals,” the comment, which he is reported to have posted a couple of days before the incident, read.
The police teams are taking the help of cyber experts to check the authenticity of the post, Singh said.
“He was my hostel mate and I found him to be a very cheerful fellow. Even yesterday (March 13) I saw him asking another student for an old pair of trousers for playing Holi. Later he went to have food at his friend’s room, who is from Korea. He belonged to a very poor family,” National Students Union of India leader Sunny Dhiman, who was at the mortuary along with Rajni’s father for the autopsy report, said.
In a related development the JNU Students Union criticised the vice chancellor of the university for not meeting the parents of the student, but rather conveying his condolences on social media.
“It’s been hours a Dalit student of our university found dead and we are shocked and appalled by the insensitivity shown by the university authorities ever since,” JNUSU vice president Amal Pullarkat said through a Facebook post.
“Leave alone consoling the family and helping them to go through the procedure, the university authorities haven’t even bothered to pay a visit to the hospital where the body of the deceased is lying since last night (Monday),” he added.
Earlier in the day, vice chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar took to Twitter to express his grief.
“JNU community is grief stricken at untimely and sad demise of Shri Muthukrishnan J. We pray that God be with his family at this critical time,” Kumar tweeted.
The family of Rajini who belonged to Salem district in Tamil Nadu has demanded a probe.