IIT-B student death case: Sahil Wakode’s parents seek CM intervention

Security personnel keep vigil outside IIT Bombay. File | Photo Credit: PTI

Parents of Sahil Wakode, an IIT Bombay student who died by suicide, have written to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis seeking intervention in the case.

Several students began a sit-in after the police removed a protest site in front of the institution, even as the family’s lawyer raised questions over the timing of a professor’s statement and the release of material linked to the case.

The parents said they had been protesting at Azad Maidan for 16 days and that no representative of the government or official of IIT-B had met them.

At a press conference at the protest venue, the student’s father said the family was not satisfied with the police probe and sought appointment of an officer of Deputy Commissioner of Police rank to investigate the case. “The institute must clarify who asked him to write the letter, the circumstances of its signing and whether examination rules permit it,” he told reporters.

Family’s lawyer questions timing of releasing material related to the case

Advocate Siddharth Ingale, lawyer for the family, said police recorded the statement of Professor Suryanarayan Doolla on October 1, which was 14 days after the incident. Professor Doolla has been booked for abetment to suicide.