On Friday 18 September, Sahil Wakode, a second-year BTech student in IIT Bombay’s energy science department, was caught with his phone in a midterm; the institute says he had uploaded the question paper to ChatGPT. By evening he was found dead in his hostel room. He was Dalit, from Yavatmal, and the third IIT Bombay student to die by suicide this year.
The accounts split. The institute says the invigilator, Prof Suryanarayana Doolla, followed Senate-approved procedure, that no disciplinary action was begun, and that the instructor and head of department counselled the boy and assured him his career would not suffer. Students and the family say he was threatened with suspension, and the father’s police complaint alleges three months of casteist remarks. An FIR now names Doolla and other senior officials for abetment of suicide and under the SC/ST Act, whose Section 18A lets police register the FIR without a preliminary enquiry. The Faculty Forum has expressed solidarity with him. About 700 students blocked the main gate.
Take IIT Bombay’s own version at face value: procedure was followed, counsel was given, assurance was offered, and hours later the student was dead. That sequence settles nothing about cause; the Crime Branch must establish what was actually said in that hall. Either the assurance was never given, or it was given and did not land.