New Delhi: Another university student from the Dalit community in India was found dead and police suspect it to be a case of suicide.

The 25-year-old student, identified as Muthukrishnan, was an M. Phil student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He was found hanging from a ceiling fan inside his friend’s house in Munirka Vihar, a south Delhi enclave, on March 13 evening.

“He had come to his friend’s house this afternoon to have food. He said he wanted to sleep and went inside the room where he locked himself in. Later his friends called him out and on getting no response, called police,” said police officer Chinmoy Biswas.

The police said that they have not found any suicide note so far and the student was found to be going through some personal problems. “He is said to have been depressed for some time over some personal issues,” he added.

He was from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and studied at JNU’s Centre for Historical Studies.

He had a Masters’ degree from Hyderabad University.

In one of his last Facebook posts, the Dalit youth had spoken against discrimination. “There is no equality in MPhil/PhD admission, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality… denying students protest places in ad (administrative) block, denying the education of the marginals. When equality is denied everything is denied (sic),” he wrote.

But the police said it was not yet sure if discrimination at the university was a factor in his death, Press Trust of India reported.

Police said it received a call this evening that the youth had locked himself in the room. On reaching the spot, they forced open the door. The crime team was called to the spot and the scene was inspected and photographed.

A second-year JNU student told news agency ANI that the youth came from a poor family. “He had told me that there were financial problems, academic pressures and personal issues as he had shared with me before,” the friend added.

The death comes more than a year after another Dalit student Rohith Chakravarti Vemula committed suicide at the University of Hyderabad. The doctorate student ended his life on January 17, 2016, following a controversy that started in July 2015.

Vemula’s suicide sparked protests and outrage across India and gained widespread media attention as an alleged case of caste discrimination.