New Delhi: Police have demolished the protest site outside IIT Bombay and detained several students and the parents of Sahil Wakode who had died by suicide at the institution. Several posts on social media point to police highhandedness and brutality.One alleges that women protestors were dragged, touched on their private parts, and beaten by police.Mumbai Police are brutally detaining students from INSIDE the IIT Bombay campus. What is going on?@CPMumbaiPolice @CMOMaharashtra – this is how you treat young people in Mumbai? @SunetraA_Pawar vahini and @mieknathshinde ji, I hope you will speak out on this. https://t.co/2DrL3nkXO7— Anish Gawande (@anishgawande) October 18, 2026October 18 was the one-month anniversary of Sahil’s death.A report on The Hindu has it that on October 18, police initially detained 10 students and released them. Sahil’s parents Ravindra and Sonali Wakode then reached the institute, submitted a letter to the registrar and met with Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad. After Gaikwad left, the Wakodes were detained and taken to Azad Maidan police station.Sixteen students were also then detained, according to Hindu. Caravan puts the number at 22. All were released after 6 pm.Sahil, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community from Yavatmal, was found dead at his hostel room on September 18. As The Wire has reported, the institute issued a statement claiming he was found using his mobile phone during his mid-term exam, and that no disciplinary action was initiated against him. The institute has since issued an apology stating that it “put out this statement without verifying whether Sahil had actually been caught cheating.” Students of the institute and his parents have accused it of casteism and of humiliating him, which they say resulted in his death.Students and activists from various organisations have been protesting at the site for a month for the institute to be accountable and for the arrest of a professor, Suryanarayana Doola, who is at the centre of the incident and has been accused of casteism and abetment to suicide.(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.)