IIT-Bombay suicide case: Prof Suryanarayana Doolla sent on leave, faculties of more IITs seek fair probe
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.
The panel, headed by Prof Ramesh Venkateswaran, chairman of the board of governors at IIT-Palakkad, includes students and has to submit its report in a week.
The decision came amid calls from faculty bodies of IIT-Kanpur, Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Roorkee and Hyderabad for due process and an impartial probe, and students clarifying the protest was not in defence of academic misconduct but for institutional reforms. Their call to temporarily relieve Doolla as dean was not a presumption of guilt, they added.
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. 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.
Earlier, student representatives said they wanted questions arising from Wakode’s death to remain student-led and rooted within the IIT-B community. They cautioned against allowing external political organisations or competing narratives to take over concerns emerging from students’ experiences on campus. 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.
A faculty member raised questions about how Wakode allegedly managed to carry a phone for the exam, saying students were frisked before entering the exam hall. “Guards are posted even outside washrooms and students are frisked after they come out,” said the faculty member. However, students said the checks were not always rigorous. “The frisking is often quite cursory. Sometimes, we keep our phone behind a scientific calculator in our pocket. The guard may simply ask what is inside, and if we say it is a calculator, we are often allowed to pass,” said a student.
The institute, meanwhile, announced that exams postponed on Sept 19 and 20 will now be held this Saturday and Sunday.
The panel, headed by Prof Ramesh Venkateswaran, chairman of the board of governors at IIT-Palakkad, includes students and has to submit its report in a week.
The decision came amid calls from faculty bodies of IIT-Kanpur, Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Roorkee and Hyderabad for due process and an impartial probe, and students clarifying the protest was not in defence of academic misconduct but for institutional reforms. Their call to temporarily relieve Doolla as dean was not a presumption of guilt, they added.
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. 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.
Earlier, student representatives said they wanted questions arising from Wakode’s death to remain student-led and rooted within the IIT-B community. They cautioned against allowing external political organisations or competing narratives to take over concerns emerging from students’ experiences on campus. 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.
A faculty member raised questions about how Wakode allegedly managed to carry a phone for the exam, saying students were frisked before entering the exam hall. “Guards are posted even outside washrooms and students are frisked after they come out,” said the faculty member. However, students said the checks were not always rigorous. “The frisking is often quite cursory. Sometimes, we keep our phone behind a scientific calculator in our pocket. The guard may simply ask what is inside, and if we say it is a calculator, we are often allowed to pass,” said a student.
The institute, meanwhile, announced that exams postponed on Sept 19 and 20 will now be held this Saturday and Sunday.
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