Arrest on IIT Bombay campus: Caste and communal shadow over suicide case

MUMBAi: While it was a quiet Sunday on the IIT-B Powai campus, news of the arrest of a first-year student was being spoken about in hushed tones. Armaan Khatri (19), whose name was allegedly mentioned in the handwritten note that the special investigation team (SIT) of the city crime branch had found in Darshan Solanki's room, was arrested from his Vile Parle residence and booked for abetment to suicide.
Solanki (18), a first-year chemical engineering student, committed suicide on February 12 by jumping from the seventh floor of his campus hostel, a day after his semester exams ended.
On Sunday, Darshan's father, Ramesh, told TOI, "We have been saying that Darshan had told us that other students were hurling casteist remarks against him. Why is the SIT not probing that? If their investigation has taken them towards this wing-mate, let them question him and punish him if he has a hand in abetting the suicide. But the caste angle has to be probed."
The probe into Darshan's death has taken a fresh turn with Khatri's arrest. While the parents alleged that their son was being discriminated against by other students, IIT-B, in an internal report, had stated that his academic performance was poor and probably hence, he took this extreme step. The leftist students' wing on campus have been harping on the fact that there was no support for backward category students and that Darshan was being harassed because he was a quota candidate.
Now, a communal angle has crept in. "The SIT interviewed almost all the wing-mates. We told them about the argument that Darshan had with this boy. Darshan had passed a communal remark which had agitated the other, who had threatened him with a paper cutter. But others had asked them to cool down and we thought that the chapter was over then," said a student. IIT-B authorities refused to make a statement