New Delhi: Disturbing visuals have surfaced on social media over the weekend, showing Mumbai Police forcibly detain a local comic artist, Masoom Rajwani, among roughly 20 others, at Chaityabhoomi, in Dadar, Mubai. They were staging a candlelight protest at the cremation site of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, on Sunday, October 25, demanding the resignation of the IIT Bombay director Professor Shireesh Kedare after the death by suicide of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode.Comedian Masoom Rajwani and many others detained by Mumbai Police.Their crime?Carrying out a peaceful candlelight gathering for Sahil Wakode.Sahil, a Dalit student, died by suicide at IIT Bombay.His parents have alleged that caste-based harassment led to his death https://t.co/7UgIIQwSL8— Parth MN (@parthpunter) October 25, 2026The parents of the young student, a Dalit, were also detained. In a separate protest gathering, around 120 students were detained by police from Shivaji Park in the city, reports the Times of India.Wakode was 22 years old and a second-year student enrolled at the Powai campus who hanged himself in a hostel room last month. The students have accused the institution, in particular Professor Suryanarayana Doola, of caste-based abuse in how he has dealt with the matter.Students and the parents were also earlier detained on October 18 – exactly a month after Wakode died. At the time, police had also demolished the protest site outside IIT Bombay and detained several students along with the parents.Mumbai police has illegally detained Sahil Wakode’s parents in an unknown location.— TheAmbedkarianChronicle (@TheAmbedkarian) October 25, 2026Police have repeatedly raised maintining “law and order” as the reason to disallow the protest to continue. The police has also said that the protests at Shivaji Park and Chaityabhoomi, a Buddhist site, were taking place without permission.Students and activists from a number of organisations have been protesting at a IIT Bombay site since a month, also demanding the arrest of Professor Doola, who is at the centre of the incident and has been accused of casteism and abetment to suicide. Doola is the professor who allegedly caught Wakode cheating. He was removed as the dean of students’ welfare and sent on leave.Several posts on social media pointed to a repeat of police high-handedness and brutality seen a month earlier. The Hindu reports that police allegedly forcibly removed several participants, including women, while police maintained that the march was unauthorised.Those detained on Sunday were released from the Tardeo, Worli and Dadar police stations at night, said reports. Police detentions to break up these protests have been allegedly increasingly brutal, as per reports and claims of the protesters and as seen on social media videos.As The Wire earlier reported, one student who went to the KMJ Hospital at Vikhroli recevied a medico-legal certificate (MLC) that categorically states “assault by Powai police” as the reason for their injuries. It also mentions “blunt trauma to the shoulder,” “linear abrasion over right elbow” and an attempt “to strangulate”.A social post from a month ago had also alleged that women protesters were dragged, touched on their private parts and beaten by police.So far, Mumbai Police has reportedly questione 40 persons in the incident, NDTV has reported.Also on Sunday, around 84 ourganisations joined the protest demanding, through an open letter, justice for Wakode and the resignation as a form of institutional accountability for the death of students, especially those from disadvantaged and marginalised communities, at IIT Bombay.The Mumbai Police, backed by the IIT Bombay administration, has made several efforts to break up the protest staged by students since Wakode died. Early last week, there was more than one round of detentions on the same day, even as the number of protesters was moderate and their protest was peaceful.Also read: IIT-B Students Allege Police Brutality, Violent Detentions at Protest for Sahil Wakode“The series of events which has unfolded following the unfortunate demise of your student Sahil Wakode has revealed the IIT Bombay administration to be spectacularly callous at best, or maliciously repressive towards complaints of caste discrimination,” the letter said, Maktoob Media reports.In particular, the letter-writers took objection to the institute describing Wakode as a “cheater” in its press note after the student’s death. “Whether the current IIT Bombay administration is the worst in competency in the history of the institute, or it was rather a very efficient mechanism to fuel a media campaign against Sahil, you are responsible and you must be held accountable,” the letter addressed directly to the director, said.The letter was released to the press hours after the death. It has been signed by numerous groups and individuals supporting Wakode’s parents and the rights of Dalit students in educational institutions.Since Wakode’s death, another death by suicide in Mumbai has come to light. Siddhesh Patil, a second-year chemical engineering student at Mumbai’s Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), died on the institute’s Matunga campus on October 21.(If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation has a list of telephone numbers they can call to speak in confidence. Icall, a counselling service run by TISS, has maintained a crowdsourced list of therapists across the country. You could also take them to the nearest hospital.)