Hyderabad: Kompally Narsaiah, a Dalit research scholar at Osmania University, committed suicide on Monday, purportedly due to unemployment.
Police said that Narsaiah, 45, who had finished his PhD from the geography department, was found dead in his hostel. The deceased hailed from Paladugu village of Mothkur mandal in Nalgonda district. The matter came to light on Monday afternoon.
Students feared heart attack
On Monday morning, one of Narsaiah’s friends knocked on his door but went away because there was no response. Again, the friend returned in the afternoon to meet him. On getting no response despite repeatedly trying, the friend peeped through the rear door and found Narsaiah lying down in an unconscious state. He informed the police, who arrived and forced open the door, to find Narsaiah dead.
Initially students thought he died due to a seizure or a heart attack. The clues team reached the spot and examined the scene, after which they confirmed he had committed suicide. The police recovered a bottle of liquid of reddish colour and sent it to forensic sciences laboratory for examination.
Speaking about Mr Narasaiah, Mr Srujan, one of his juniors, said, “He was a good person and socialized with everyone. He was a fighter who actively took part in the Telangana agitation and other protests for students rights. Recently he started roaming around in the university. We thought it as normal as during the PhD submission, many scholars spend time alone and prepare for thesis submission. We never suspected it could have been depression.”
He further said that there were no employment opportunities after education for most scholars. Both Telangana state and Central governments had utterly failed in creating job opportunities.
“It is a shame for both governments,” he said. “The lack of niyamakalu (jobs) have led to a fighter for Telangana to lose his job.”
Meanwhile, many students gathered in front of the hostel and demanded justice for the deceased. They raised slogans against Chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao. As he died on university premises, that too due to unemployment, students demanded an ex-gratia forf hims family from the state government . The registrar of Osmania University, who was out of station, orally assured to protesting students to provide Rs 2 lakh compensation.
Students protested for more than four hours till it was foiled by police personnel, who took them into custody and dispersed the protestors.
S. Rajashekar Reddy, inspector of police, OU police station, said, “Mr Narsaiah was found dead inside his hostel room. Blood was oozing from his nose. The doctor who conducted the autopsy opined that the deceased had consumed some unknown poison and died.”
The police have booked a case of suspicious death and further investigations are underway.
