Lucknow, Dec. 19: Kumar Arjan Das Harchandani was angry with the President for not responding to his pleas for help. So he began sending him threatening emails.

He sent 37 in all. Last night, he hanged himself.

Doctors said the 30-year-old, who appeared to be a patient of acute schizophrenia, may have succumbed to one of his mood swings. Alone in his Varanasi hotel room, far away from home in Thane, Maharashtra, he ended his life unable to cope with the demons of his mind any more.

Harchandani, who was out on bail for treatment, had checked into National Lodge, a hotel in the city of moksha, on December 16.

Last night, police found him hanging from the ceiling fan of his room. On the bed was a country-made revolver, some newspaper clippings, a diary and some papers. The police also found a purse containing Rs 2,500 and a university identity card.

A telephone number in the diary helped the police contact his family in Ulhasnagar in Thane. His sister Mona confirmed that Harchandani, an employed postgraduate in microbiology, was headed for Varanasi for puja. The diary had clippings of the newspaper reports on his threat mails to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

“His family informed us that he was suffering from depression,” said A.K. Pandey, one of the officers investigating the case.

A prescription from a doctor in Delhi showed that the young man was under treatment. But it is not clear how he had got the revolver and why. “We are investigating that, too,” Pandey said.

Harchandani started sending the threat mails in August. He had earlier sought Kalam’s intervention to resolve a property dispute with his relatives. With no response coming from the President’s office, he felt hurt and was provoked to send the emails, sources said.

He sent 37 letters — six on August 16, and 31 on August 24. The police launched an investigation on the basis of a complaint from Rashtrapati Bhavan that said the President had received threatening mails from three email IDs.

Details from the Internet service provider helped the investigators trace the mail ID to Mumbai and the man behind the letters. On August 31, Mumbai police arrested Harchandani.

“All these letters were derogatory and explicit in threat,” a spokesman for Mumbai police had said.

Harchandani spent about a month and a half behind bars. On October 16, he was released on bail for treatment for his mental condition in which people like him go through mood swings.

A psychoanalyst in Varanasi, D.N. Vajpayee, said Harchandani may have been gripped by morbid paranoia that led him to end his life.