Mangaluru: Sahil Wakode, a 20-year-old second-year B.Tech student at the premier IIT Bombay who belonged to a Dalit community, died by suicide on September 18. Within hours, the institute issued a statement that spent little time expressing grief and regret over the death of a young student on campus and much more on his alleged attempt to cheat in an exam.The institute has since issued an apology stating that it “put out this statement without verifying whether Sahil had actually been caught cheating.” But the apology came a little too late. The institute’s first statement had instantly triggered a discourse that shifted the focus from the student’s tragic death by suicide – allegedly due to an act of casteism – to his alleged act of cheating, and to the notion that, since he was a “reserved category” student, he didn’t deserve to be in a premier institute.Many faculty members at IIT Bombay and numerous social media users have since come to the defence of the professor, Suryanarayana Doolla, who is at the centre of the incident and has been accused of casteism and abetment to suicide. In defending the professor, Doolla’s supporters, it appears, are almost justifying the death of a 20-year-old who is not around to defend himself.However, this is not the first time Doolla has been accused of overreach or, for that matter, casteism. Understanding what he allegedly did in Sahil’s case requires placing it against his past conduct – conduct that is itself symptomatic of how power operates in India’s premier institutes.Past actionsDoolla was appointed Dean of Student Affairs in 2023 and continued in the position until early 2026, when he was made Dean of Administrative Affairs.In March 2024, a group of students, all from the engineering department, put together a play called Raahovan for the institute’s annual performing arts festival. The play, the students said, was a modern take on Ramayana. It was staged at the open-air theatre of the institute and was recorded, and soon circulated on social media. Multiple complaints were filed subsequently. Doolla, as Dean of Student Affairs, acting on the complaints, fined some students Rs 1.2 lakh and the rest Rs 40,000. The students were also debarred from the hostel.One of the students who was a part of the play and had paid the fine says, “When there is pressure building from outside, you expect the institute to stand by you. Instead, Doolla thought he needed to deliver an ‘exemplary punishment’ and we were all made to pay the fine.”The same year, two other students were placed under suspension after they allegedly spoke to the local press. The students, both pursuing PhDs from the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) department, were suspended for eight months and 13 months. The suspension of one of them, Akshay Sawant, was revoked after the Bombay high court ruled in his favour. But by the time the court had ruled in his favour, he had already lost a few months. The other student, who belongs to a Dalit community, had to spend 13 months under suspension and was also permanently barred from the hostel. He still continues to fight his case in the high court. The decision to suspend both these PhD scholars was also taken by Doolla.It is important to note that at the time when Doolla took the decision to bar the PhD student from the hostel permanently, the institute didn’t have any such rule in place. But later, when Sawant won his case in the high court, the rule was introduced in September 2024. This decision was taken by the Disciplinary Action Committee (DAC), again headed by Doolla.The rule to not speak to media applies not just to students but also to employees of the institute. But ironically, since the FIR was registered against Doolla, several teaching staff have come forward in support of him and are regularly seen participating in panel discussions on right-leaning news channels.Screengrab from a video of faculty members of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) holding a march on campus to support Suryanarayana Doolla, who was removed as Dean of Administrative Affairs amid protests by students over the suicide of a 22-year-old student, in Mumbai. Photo: PTI‘Thought of jumping off from my hostel building’In 2024, a third-year PhD student who was allegedly roughed up by fellow PhD scholars for nursing a wounded dog on campus says she had approached Doolla to complain about the incident. But when she met him, she was “shouted at and threatened” by Doolla, she says. “Contrary to the public perception, the (IIT Bombay) campus is not animal-friendly. We usually stepped out only later at night to feed dogs and only within the designated space on campus. So one night, when I was out to check on a wounded dog, three female students had tried to bully me and one of them had forcefully pushed me. I was too shaken after the incident and, on my friends’ suggestion, I had decided to report the matter to the Dean of Student Affairs,” the PhD scholar told The Wire.The PhD student says she was still very “distraught and frightened for her own safety” when she approached Doolla. But when she met him, she claims, Doolla talked down to her for not mentioning the date on the letter and also for pushing for a complaint. “I was humiliated, insulted and threatened with suspension while I had gone to submit an application regarding mental harassment,” she alleged. She also adds that the response was so harsh that she “felt suicidal”. “He pushed me so much that I even thought of jumping off from my hostel building.”A fifth-year student from the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, the same department where Sahil was enrolled and Doolla teaches, said Doolla had come to be known as a “tyrant.” “The moment you were caught in Doolla’s crosshairs, you knew you were pretty much done. Students avoided him at any cost. If Sahil was picked on by any other professor, and even if he was reprimanded, he wouldn’t have feared extreme consequences. With Doolla, the punishments were always very harsh,” the student claimed.On alleged casteism by DoollaSahil’s parents, who have been protesting in Mumbai since the incident and demanding Doolla’s arrest, have claimed that just days before Sahil died by suicide, he had allegedly told them about the casteism he was facing at the hands of Doolla. Sahil’s father Ravindra says he had advised his son to ignore things and only focus on studies. “I told him getting into IIT is difficult and you are here, you focus on your studies. Had I complained about Doolla then, maybe my child would have still been alive,” Ravindra said.Since the incident, Doolla has been unreachable. The Wire tried contacting him at his office landline but got no response.Since Sahil’s death and the subsequent FIR against Doolla accusing him of casteism and abetment to suicide, several students have spoken up against Doolla. Pages are floated on social media where students are sharing how they were allegedly bullied, shouted at and meted with disproportionate punishments by Doolla. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justice for Sahil (@justice4sahil)Some parents too have shared their experience of having talked to Doolla. “I have interacted with Mr Doolla on two occasions. I was shocked to see how disrespectfully and in an insulting tone he interacted with us and I wondered at that time as well how he must be interacting with students.”(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.)