IIT-Bombay’s board of governors has requested that Prof Suryanarayana Doolla go on leave due to scrutiny.
MUMBAI: IIT-Bombay’s board of governors asked Prof Suryanarayana Doolla, facing scrutiny over the suicide of BTech student Sahil Wakode last Friday, to proceed on leave and set up a high-level 10-member committee to examine the circumstances that led to the death, reports Hemali Chhapia. Ravindra and his wife had last met Wakode on Sept 13—five days before the death—when they spent the day with him on campus before returning to their home in Yavatmal the following day.
Wakode’s father Ravindra Wakode, who arrived in Mumbai, met city crime branch officers and later told reporters that he would begin a hunger strike from Wednesday if IIT-B officials named in the case were not arrested. Earlier, student representatives said they wanted questions arising from Wakode’s death to remain student-led and rooted within the IIT-B community. In a statement, the students said they neither supported nor condoned cheating “or any form of academic misconduct”. They said the protest was a collective effort to flag systemic concerns that had existed for some time and to seek “meaningful and strong institutional reforms” so that no student would have to face similar circumstances in future.
They cautioned against allowing external political organisations or competing narratives to take over concerns emerging from students’ experiences on campus.
