Police: Maratha student’s ‘suicide note’ forged

Ramasamy added that the motive for Rahade's suicide was yet to be established. (Representational)

A day after a student belonging to the Maratha community died by suicide in Beed district, the police claimed that his purported “suicide note” widely shared on social media was forged. An offence was registered against an unidentified person on Friday night for committing forgery.

Beed Superintendent of Police Raja Rajasamy said that handwriting experts concluded on Friday that the note was not written by the deceased, Vivek Rahde. The 18-year-old was found hanging from a tree in his family’s farm in Ketura village on Thursday morning.

The note mentioned that Rahade had decided to end his life as he feared losing out on a place in the merit list of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) medical examination as the Supreme Court had stayed reservation for the Maratha community in educational institutions.

Ramasamy said that handwriting experts compared the note written in one of Rahade’s notebooks with other answer papers he had written in school and college. “The handwriting in the note did not match that in the answer papers,” he said.

Ramasamy added that an unidentified person had written the note and uploaded it on social media in order to portray Rahade’s suicide in a different light.

The FIR registered on Friday at Beed Rural police station also booked the unidentified person with committing an act with the intention to cause or which was likely to cause fear or alarm in the public, induce a section of the public to commit an offence against the state or against public tranquility.

Ramasamy added that the motive for Rahade’s suicide was yet to be established.

After the news of Rahade’s death broke on Thursday, NCP leader Parth Pawar, the grandnephew of party chief Sharad Pawar, tweeted: “Before a chain reaction of such unfortunate incident starts, Maratha leaders have to wake up & fight for this cause. Requesting Maha govt to step in to solve the crisis.”

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