Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday spoke to the parents of the IIT Bombay student, who died by suicide last week, and assured them all help in their fight to seek justice for their son, news agency PTI reported.

Gandhi made a nearly 17-minute video call to Sahil Wakode’s parents — Ravindra and Sonali Wakode — while they were on their way to Mumbai from Washim district, Congress sources told PTI. Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib and Maharashtra unit chief Shivraj More were also with the couple. 

The parents of Sahil Wakode have announced that they will be going on an indefinite hunger strike in front of IIT Bombay gate from 11 am on Thursday. Sahil, a second-year student of IIT Bombay, died by suicide last Friday after he was found using a mobile phone to access ChatGPT in an examination hall.

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The Mumbai Police Crime Branch is probing his death, while a faculty member named in the FIR alleging abetment to suicide on grounds of caste discrimination has been sent on leave. 

IIT Bombay student’s parents allege police tried to move them out of Mumbai

A day after Sahil Wakode’s father announced a hunger strike if no one was arrested over his son’s death by suicide, the family’s lawyer alleged that Mumbai Police tried to take the couple out of the city against their wishes.

Lawyer Nikhil Kamble said Ravindra and Sonali Wakode had planned to stay in Mumbai but were taken in a private vehicle early Wednesday. The couple had addressed the media outside IIT Bombay’s main gate a day earlier, demanding action in the case. Police denied the allegation, saying the couple had themselves asked to be taken to Yavatmal.

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“They told us that they wanted to be taken to Yavatmal and hence we organised the same,” the officer said.


The officer also denied that the couple was taken out of Mumbai because the father had threatened to stage a hunger strike.

The Wakodes have alleged that their son was subjected to caste-based discrimination on campus. An FIR was registered following a complaint by his father, naming Professor Suryanarayana Doola, who was the invigilator in the classroom where Sahil was allegedly found using a phone during a mid-semester examination on September 18. Sahil died by suicide hours later.

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