Chennai, July 2(BPNS)
The charred remains of a temporary staff member of IIT Madras, Unnikrishnan Nair who hails from Ernakulam in Kerala, was found in the hockey ground within the IIT campus on Thursday night.
Unnikrishnan Nair returned to the IIT campus on Thursday and his body was found in a charred state at the hockey ground. The Kottapuram police reached the spot and after preliminary investigation, the body was handed over to Royapettah Government Hospital for postmortem.
Police Station officer said that a case was registered and police on preliminary investigation found that he committed suicide by pouring petrol from a small bottle. The forensic department has collected water bottles and traces of petrol from the crime scene.
An eleven page suicide note was also recovered from his residence in which he had written ,” I do not know what I am doing. I am very depressed. No one is responsible for my death.”
A case under section 174 of CrPC has been registered. Kotturpuram police have already questioned two IIT students who were staying with him, Anil Kumar from Kerala and Prakash from Salem but the police when contacted said that it was a routine investigation.
IIT Madras in a statement said, “An unfortunate and tragic incident occurred in IIT Madras on Thursday involving a temporary project staff. The project staff whose body was found joined the institute in April 2021 and was staying outside the campus.”
“We are shocked and grieved and convey our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the departed soul. The police are investigating the incident and the institute is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Unnikrishnan Nair’s father Reghu is a senior scientist with the ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram.
An Assistant Professor at the Humanities and Social Sciences department of the institute , Vipin Puthiyedathuveetil has resigned from IIT Madras alleging caste discrimination at the institute and has called for a detailed probe into the caste discrimination taking place in the institute.
