Ravindra Vakode, the father of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode, has claimed that Professor Suryanarayan Dulla has harassed his son on the grounds of his caste.
As per the allegations, the harassment had been going on since a few months, and hence, Ravindra Vakode has demanded the immediate arrest of Professor Suryanarayan Dulla.
As per the FIR filed by Ravindra Vakode, Dulla had said to Sahil that he belongs to a "lower caste" and can "harass him and implicate him in any false case."
Other unidentified senior officials have also been alleged in the complaint.
An eyewitness, who was present inside the exam hall, claims that the invigilator, who happens to be a faculty member in Sahil’s own department, hurled caste-based abuses at him during the exam.
There have been reports that such an act by the invigilator took place about three months ago.
Several students informed The Wire that Sahil was reportedly asked to step out of the exam hall after the incident, and some students witnessed the invigilator shouting at him in the corridor.
According to another student, the invigilator confronted Sahil after the exam and warned him that he will be “expelled from the institute for a year".
Sahil, a second-year BTech student from the Department of Energy Science & Engineering, is said to have been caught using his mobile phone during the examination period.
It is said that Sahil had sent the question paper on ChatGPT for getting the solutions.
According to IIT Bombay, no disciplinary action was taken against him, and his instructor and Head of the Department counselled him later on, saying that it would not harm his academic career.
According to The Wire report, less than an hour after the altercation with Dulla, Sahil was found hanged inside his hostel room at around 6 pm.
After the filing of the complaint by the father, an FIR was lodged against Dulla under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with abetment of suicide, and also under some sections of the SC/ST Atrocities Act.
The case has now been referred to the Mumbai Police Crime Branch for further investigation.
DCP Dattatray Nalawade admitted that an FIR had been filed in response to the complaint made by the father.
The Vakode family did not want to take the body of Sahil initially.
They got the body after it was handed over to the Crime Branch on Saturday night.
The mother of Sahil, named Sonali Wakode, claimed that the same professor had made casteist comments about her son some months ago, and one day before, she said that her son had been "tortured", and she would pursue it legally.
Sahil comes under the category of “Scheduled Castes", and he is a native of Yavatmal, a district of Maharashtra.
According to the views of his friends, Sahil is a “studious boy” who could get 8.5 CGPA. His mother works as a schoolteacher in Yavatmal while his father works as security personnel in a bank.
The announcement of Sahil's death and the caste-based claims led to a large number of students gathering on campus.
The students went on to 'gherao' the office of Director Shireesh Kedare, seeking resignation from him and also from Prof. Dulla.
Approximately 400 students had gathered by the end of the day on which Sahil had died, while the number of participants had exceeded 1,000 by midnight.
Some people who took part in the protests alleged use of force by the police to disperse them.
It is not the first instance where allegations have been levied on IIT Bombay concerning discrimination based on caste after the death of one of its students.
In February 2023, the family of Darshan Solanki, an 18-year-old BTech first-year student, accused Solanki of being a victim of caste discrimination prior to his death and had even suspected foul play.
At that time, the police came to know that Solanki had called his father for about half an hour prior to his death without saying anything about the discrimination.
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