Parents of IIT Bombay Students Will Start a Hunger Strike at Azad Maidan

The parents of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode, who committed suicide in his dorm room, Ravindra and Sonali Wakode would go on a hunger strike if the IIT Bombay authorities listed in the FIR pertaining to their son’s murder are not detained.

The 22-year-old second-year student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering was discovered hanging from the ceiling fan in his Powai campus dorm room on September 18. Following extensive student demonstrations on campus, the student’s death case was moved to the Crime Branch for additional investigation a day later, on September 19.

Sahil from Yavatmal, Maharashtra, had protested to his parents about discrimination and caste taunts. Sahil’s parents went to the Mumbai Crime Branch on Tuesday and demanded that IIT Bombay Director Shirish Kedare and designated faculty member Professor Suryanarayana Doolla be arrested right away.

Following talks with the Mumbai Police, Sahil Wakode’s parents have decided to start their hunger strike at the agreed-upon location at Azad Maidan after first demanding to protest outside the IIT campus gates. The demonstration will begin today, according to people close to the family, though the exact time has not yet been established.

The FIR in this instance, which accuses faculty member Suryanarayan Doolla of aiding suicide due to caste discrimination, names Doolla. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been used to charge him. Suryanarayana Doolla was dismissed as the dean of Administrative Affairs at IIT Bombay in response to student and political activist demonstrations over Sahil’s purported suicide.