Mangaluru: “They killed my baby. They killed my baby,” a distraught Sonali Wakode repeated as she was escorted out of the Powai police station.Her son, Sahil Wakode, 20, an engineering student at IIT Bombay, was found dead in his hostel room on Friday (September 18). He allegedly died by suicide. The institute has since 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. But students of the institute and his parents have accused it of casteism and of humiliating him, which they say resulted in his death.Sahil Wakode. Photo: LinkedIn.Sahil, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community from Yavatmal, Maharashtra, was a second-year student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering. Friends remember him as a “studious boy” who scored a CGPA of 8.5 in his first year. His mother is a school teacher in Yavatmal and father works in the security team at a bank.Sahil’s classmates and friends have accused professor Sooryanarayana Doolla of the energy science department of pushing him to the extreme. Doolla is also dean of administrative affairs and was an invigilator in the hall where Sahil was taking his mid-term exam, held between 11 am and 1 pm on Friday.According to classmates, Sahil was asked to leave the exam hall after the incident. “In the corridor, a few students saw the professor yell at Sahil,” a senior student told The Wire. Another student who was in the same hall alleged that, soon after the exam, the invigilator confronted Sahil and told him “he would be kicked out of the institute for one year”. Yet another student claimed the professor threatened that Sahil would be debarred from the institute.The Wire tired to contact Doolla on his office telephone but received no response.The institute maintains that “no departmental action” was taken against him.“A second-year student of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay died by suicide yesterday evening. The Institute expresses its deep and heartfelt condolences to the student’s family, kith and kin.Earlier in the day, during an examination, the student was found using a mobile phone in the exam hall. He had uploaded the examination question paper on ChatGPT to seek answers.No disciplinary action was initiated against the student. The matter was also discussed with the student by the instructor, the faculty advisor and the Head of the Department, who counselled him and assured him that the incident would not adversely affect his academic career.The student subsequently returned to his hostel room. Later in the evening, he was found dead in his room.IIT Bombay is deeply saddened by the loss of a student. The Institute is extending support to the student’s family and friends, classmates, faculty members and others affected by this tragic incident. The circumstances surrounding the death are being looked into by the appropriate authorities,” the institution’s statement said.Sonali Wakode has also claimed that the professor made “casteist remarks” to her son a few months ago.Less than an hour after the alleged confrontation, Sahil allegedly hanged himself from the ceiling fan in his hostel room. His body was recovered at around 6 pm.When news of his death spread, students gathered in large numbers, gheraoed director Shireesh Kedare’s office and demanded his and Doolla’s resignation. They also blocked the institute’s main gate, and police arrived soon after. Some protesters alleged that police used force to deter them.Students hold up posters demanding that Doolla resign, that an FIR be lodged and that Wakode’s family be compensated. Photo by arrangement.Around 400 students had gathered by late evening, and the number grew to over a thousand by midnight. The protest continued on September 19.Sahil’s parents, Sonali and Ravindra, reached the campus on September 19 and refused to claim their son’s body until police registered a case against Doolla. When they visited the Powai police station, their demand was turned down, and they were escorted out in a police van. On her way out, a visibly distraught Sonali accused the premier institute of “killing” her son.Later in the evening, Datta Nalawade, DCP, Zone 10, Mumbai, told the media that an FIR for abetment of suicide had been registered. While he refused to mention the names of those named in the FIR, he said, “The deceased person’s father has filed the FIR with us. We have named all those he made accusations against. We will investigate the matter.”Around 8 pm, the parents went to Rajawadi Hospital, where the body was kept after the post-mortem.Sahil is the third student to have died by suicide at IIT Bombay just this year. His death follows those of Naman Aggrawal, a second-year civil engineering student, on February 4, and of Sohil Rajkumar Sangwan, a materials engineering student, on July 28. In 2023, 18-year-old Darshan Solanki, a first-year BTech student who belonged to the Dalit community from Gujarat, died after allegedly jumping from a hostel building.The deaths of students, especially those from the vulnerable Dalit, Adivasi and OBC communities, are a problem that extends across India’s elite institutions. Government data, too, points to a heavy toll on students from marginalised communities. Of the 122 suicides between 2014 and 2021 at IITs, IIMs and Union-run universities, 58% involved students from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, OBC and minority communities. That included 24 SC students, three ST students and 41 OBC students.However, the government has maintained that it has no information on how many SC/ST students died by suicide because of social discrimination.Student groups have long alleged caste bias on campuses. IIT Bombay’s Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle has been at the forefront of a long-drawn struggle to get an SC/ST cell established. While 87 of 108 Union government-run institutions have such cells, suicides still continue.‘According to media reports, Doolla has been booked for alleged casteist remarks 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.)