Bangalore, July 4: Raunak Banerjee, 14, was so scared of heights that he couldn't even stand on a table. Last week, the Class IX boy jumped off the 10th floor of his apartment building in Bangalore after returning from school.

A suicide note in his schoolbag said he couldn't take the bullying by his peers any more but did not name anyone or specify where the bullying took place.

"Even his father had no clue about the bullying," his aunt Taruna Banerjee told The Telegraph today, a day after the police first mentioned the June 29 suicide before the local media.

"He was such a well-behaved, shy and soft-spoken boy - one can imagine how much (trauma) it would take to overcome his fear of heights. At home he was even scared of climbing on a table."

Authorities at Baldwin's Boys High School tried to distance the institution from the incident. They claimed the bullying took place not within the compound but in the private van that ferried Raunak and 20-odd other students between school and home.

The police said they hadn't yet figured out who did the bullying and where.

"It's bullying and it has been happening and it is intolerable. Those who I considered my friends have betrayed me," an officer quoted the suicide note as saying. "There are things I can't discuss. I can't take it any more."

Security cameras at Raunak's apartment complex in J.P. Nagar, an hour's drive from the school, show the boy getting off the van on June 29 evening and step into the lift. It took him to the 10th floor instead of his first-floor flat.

He left his schoolbag outside the lift and jumped out of a window in the lobby.

"His mother has been inconsolable. She fainted when his ashes were immersed at Srirangapatna (near Mysore) on Saturday," Taruna said.

The family is from Lake Town in Calcutta. Raunak had earlier studied in Chandigarh before his father, an advertising professional, shifted to Bangalore five years ago. His mother is a pre-school teacher. Raunak's elder sister is 18. The father's phone was switched off today.

Baldwin's principal Dinakar Wilson described Raunak as a good student.

"We are investigating the matter since there were some boys and girls (from Baldwin's girls' division) in the van," he said. "We'll take serious action if it was a case of bullying."

School authorities held a meeting this morning with the 20 students who travelled home with Raunak that day, but none would reveal what emerged from it.

A case has been registered against unknown people for abetting Raunak's suicide.

"We are treading very cautiously since the victim didn't name anyone and since all the parties are minors," deputy commissioner of police S.D. Sharanappa said.

Raunak's Facebook page had a few pictures of his family and of fast cars. He last updated his status on May 28, with the line: "Happiness is peace of mind."

At a condolence meeting in the school today, two of his classmates said Raunak hadn't shown any signs of depression on June 29.

"He helped me in the physics lab and I found him happy," one boy said.

"He always scored good marks and was very helpful and friendly. That day (June 29) he looked normal," said the other.

Bharathi Singh, founder of Yuva Helpline, an NGO that works with depressed young people, said Raunak may have been bullied for a long time "and may have contemplated it (suicide) for sometime".

"I don't think he took the decision in just one day," she said.

She added: "Being 13 or 14 is such a critical phase when they are neither children nor adults. At home they are just kids, but they are quite grown-ups at school. So if he didn't confide in anyone about the bullying, it's because of this factor of teen life when children go through that confusing phase."

Raunak's family has started an online petition against bullying on change.org, which had attracted more than 2,000 signatures by this afternoon.