Mumbai: An 18-year-old student of IIT Bombay allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of the hostel on the institute’s campus on Sunday afternoon. Police have not recovered any suicide notes from the spot. The police have registered a case of accidental death in this matter. However, a student group has alleged that he committed suicide due to discrimination against SC students on campus.
According to the police, Darshan Solanki, a BTech student, was a resident of Ahmedabad. He had enrolled in the engineering course just three months back and his first semester exams ended on Saturday. At present, the Powai police are trying to ascertain whether the student took the step of committing suicide under the pressure of studies.
The college’s Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) in a tweet termed it as institutional murder. He tweeted and wrote, ‘We mourn the demise of Darshan Solanki, an 18-year-old Dalit student who joined IIT Bombay for his B.Tech 3 months back. We must understand that this is not an individual case, but an institutional murder.” APPSC wrote in another tweet that despite complaints, the institute did not care to make the place inclusive and safe for Dalit Bahujan Adivasi students. First-year students face the most harassment in terms of Anti Reservation Emotions and taunts of non-deserving and non-merit.
Along with this, Ambedkar Periyar Phoole Study Circle alleged in an Instagram post that it is not a hidden fact that SC/ST community students face extreme harassment and discrimination. In a note to the students, the director of the institute, Subhasis Chowdhary said that he regrets to inform about the death of a first-year student in a tragic incident this afternoon. He further said that the Powai police is probing the matter and the parents of the student have been informed. Subhasis Chowdhary wrote at the end of the note that he prays that the family gets the strength to bear this loss.
