IIT suicide case: Crime Branch scans CCTV footage from exam hall, hostel

Four days after IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode died by suicide after he was allegedly caught using ChatGPT during an examination, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch is analysing CCTV footage from the exam hall and hostel, for a timeline of events leading up to his death.

IIT Bombay Faculty Forum president Rajkumar Pant said 22-year-old Sahil had not approached the institute’s SC/ST cell with any complaint in the recent past.

Sahil, a second-year B Tech student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, was found hanging in his hostel room on the Powai campus on September 18 evening, hours after being caught allegedly using a mobile phone to access ChatGPT during a mid-semester examination.

IIT Bombay has initiated replacement of ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans after Sahil’s death, sources familiar with the development said. The image of a batch of wall-mounted fans arriving at the campus as part of ‘renovation work’ has gone viral on social media. Sahil’s death case was transferred to the Crime Branch on September 19. According to officials, CCTV cameras inside the examination hall captured Sahil’s movements before a professor approached him and led him away from other students after he was allegedly caught copying.

Subsequent footage showed Sahil walking across the campus to his hostel room after exiting the examination hall. He was not seen leaving his room thereafter, an official said.

The student was later found dead inside his hostel room. Investigators are compiling and cross-referencing camera feeds from multiple locations across the institute to map his movements and reconstruct the sequence of events preceding the incident.

IIT Bombay on Monday removed Suryanarayana Doolla as the dean of Administrative Affairs following protests by students and political activists over Sahil’s suicide, which led to a case of abetment and caste discrimination registered against him. An official declined to comment on reports that the CCTV footage shows Doolla questioning Sahil after appearing to notice him looking at something in his pocket, before taking him aside from other students.

IIT Alumni Body Mourns IIT Bombay Death

New Delhi: Pan-IIT Alumni India has issued a formal statement of grief after the recent death of a student at IIT Bombay. The organisation, which represents alumni of all 23 Indian Institutes of Technology, offered condolences to the family and said it stood with the IIT Bombay community. The statement stressed that IIT campuses should remain places of study, respect and common purpose. It asked students, teachers, administrators and alumni to talk through disagreements with fairness and empathy, and to protect the dignity of every person on campus.

Pan-IIT described the IIT system as a national asset whose value depends on cohesion and a steady focus on academic quality. At a tense moment, it said, the community should set aside division and work to protect the standing of the institutes in India and abroad.

The group said it would keep supporting efforts that help campuses grow in a balanced way and that fit the long-term national goal of a developed India by 2047. It closed by urging the IIT family to build institutions that are both internationally competitive and humane.