Gujarat Congress MLA Demands Special Probe In Dalit IIT Student's Death

Gujarat Congress MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Thursday demanded a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the death of a student of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, terming the episode as "suspicious", while a Mumbai police team visited the victim's home in Ahmedabad to record statements of his parents.

Mr Mevani said an SIT probe was necessary to find out if the death of Darshan Solanki, a first-year student of BTech (chemical) at the IIT Bombay, was suicide or a case of "murder" or a fallout of caste-based discrimination, ragging.

Solanki (18), who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community, allegedly died by suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of a hostel building on the Powai campus of the IIT on Sunday (February 12), but his family suspects something wrong in his death.

After meeting the Ahmedabad-based family members of Solanki, Mr Mevani said the Dalit community has given a call for a nationwide candle march on February 19 in support of the late student.

The Congress legislator said, "Darshan's father Ramesh Solanki told me that he was not even allowed to see the face of his dead son when he went there (Mumbai) to collect the body. He was told different things over the phone by the institute, and IIT Bombay professors told different stories. The entire issue appears suspicious."

He claimed cops were not ready to hand over papers related to an accidental death case registered at a police station in Mumbai to the student's father, and the dean and other officials of the IIT Bombay were not sensitive enough while dealing with him.

"Since the incident is suspicious, the student's family members and the Dalit community believe this could be a case of murder, caste-based discrimination, and ragging," Mr Mevani said.

The Dalit rights activist said the Maharashtra government should form an SIT comprising "non-corrupt police officers with integrity" to conduct a probe into the case and to find out the truth.

Mevani appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter, meet the grieving family members, and order the kind of investigation they demanded.

He said Solanki was a bright student who managed to secure admission in the prestigious institute at a time when the improper implementation of the reservation policy has led to only a few candidates from Dalit and tribal communities getting seats in such colleges.

"Probably, Darshan was a victim of the discrimination that was experienced by Rohith Vemula (in Hyderabad) and Payal Tadvi (in Mumbai) due to which he committed suicide," Mevani said.

Vemula, a research scholar of the University of Hyderabad, allegedly hanged himself in a hostel room in 2016. Tadvi, a second-year gynaecology student of TN Topiwala National Medical College in Mumbai, allegedly committed suicide in her hostel room in 2019. Both belonged to SC communities.

Meanwhile, a three-member team from the Powai police under whose jurisdiction the IIT Bombay is located visited Solanki's home at Maninagar in Ahmedabad city in the morning, an official said in the country's financial capital.

Solanki's family on Wednesday claimed he faced discrimination at the IIT B for belonging to an SC community and maintained that there was a strong possibility that he was "murdered".

As part of its probe, the team will speak to Solanki's mother, father and other relatives. It will record his parents' statements once again, said the official.

Solanki's parents had visited Mumbai on Tuesday to collect their son's body. In their initial statements, they had not raised any objection to the probe or expressed doubt over the cause of their son's death, said the official.

"The police team will ask them whether they have to say anything more in the case or if they have any complaint against anybody," he said.

A student organisation at the IIT B has alleged Solanki faced discrimination over his caste.

The IIT Bombay administration, however, has rejected charges of caste bias in the institute and said initial inputs from the victim's friends suggested there was no discrimination.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)