A 21-year-old student of Hindu College in the city, committed suicide in his hostel room on Friday morning, police said.

Shashi Shekhar, a first-year postgraduate student of Hindi literature, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of the hostel room (number 111) around 9.30 am, police said.

Police said they found a cryptic suicide note on his bed. Some of his class notes in Hindi were on one side of Shekhar’s suicide note, while on the other side, he wrote in English about afterlife.

Police said Shekhar was from Nalanda district in Bihar and had been staying at the hostel for the past four years. His parents are professors in Nalanda University. He has two siblings — a brother who works with a private firm and a sister.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sindhu Pillai said, “One of his friends had called him. When he didn’t answer the phone, despite repeated calls, she asked a classmate to check. Shekhar’s classmate went to his room and found the door locked from inside. He peeped in through the ventilator and saw Shekhar hanging from the ceiling fan. He called other classmates and they forced their way in”.

Police said the suicide note reads: “It’s my story, can we do nothing for the dead? And for a long time, the answer has been nothing.”

A senior police officer said, “Shekhar spoke with his classmates till 2 am, after which he went to his room. He had been researching a lot on life after death and his parents had advised him against it.”

A police team rushed Shekhar to the Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

A professor at Hindu College said: “Shekhar was very good at his subject. He topped his class throughout graduation. He topped the university in his final year.”

“He won a gold medal and got a scholarship for his postgraduate course in Hindu College. He had also passed the entrance test in Jawaharlal Nehru University,” the professor said.