However, IIT Bombay said in a statement Tuesday that it “strongly refutes” claims that Darshan’s death was caused by discrimination or that it was “institutional murder”.
A few years ago, Rameshbhai Solanki, a plumber from Ahmedabad, was watching the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots on his television set at home with his son, Darshan, who harboured dreams of studying at one of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), reported The Print.
Scenes in the film showing senior students ragging first-years on campus left both father and son scarred. “Yeh ladke nahi hain, yeh jaanwar hain (these are not boys, these are animals),” Rameshbhai recalls Darshan saying back then.
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On Sunday afternoon, 18-year-old Darshan, a first-year BTech student at IIT Bombay, reportedly jumped to his death from his hostel building on campus, without leaving any suicide note.
Three days after his son’s death, Rameshbhai can’t help but wonder if Darshan had suffered harassment himself, especially as the Solankis belong to a Scheduled Caste (SC).
“He never said anything to me directly, but over the last couple of days, I have been finding out that he told my brother-in-law and my daughter that students from ‘lower’ castes are ridiculed and harassed by fellow students at the institute,” Rameshbhai, now 46, told ThePrint.
A student group, the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), has alleged that Darshan’s death was the result of the caste-based discrimination that many SC students suffer, with “first-years facing the most harassment in terms of anti-reservation sentiment”.
While the police have registered a case of accidental death, the APPSC has termed it an “institutional murder”.
However, IIT Bombay said in a statement Tuesday that it “strongly refutes” claims that Darshan’s death was caused by discrimination or that it was “institutional murder”.
“It is wrong to make such accusations when the police are still investigating the case. Based on initial inputs from friends, there is no indication that the student faced any such discrimination. We request that such unfounded allegations not be spread,” the statement read.
In a fresh statement Wednesday, the APPSC IIT Bombay demanded the resignation of the institute’s director, Subhasis Chaudhuri, in light of the Solanki family’s claim that Darshan had confided in them about caste-based discrimination on campus.
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