Two days after IIT-Bombay second-year student Sahil Wakode died by suicide after being allegedly caught using ChatGPT during his exam, CCTV footage from the 12.30 pm to 12.45 pm window has emerged, purportedly showing Professor Suryanarayana Doolla asking the student to leave the examination hall. Sources said the CCTV footage is likely to be crucial to the police investigation. The Crime Branch team led by ACP Dharamveer Bansod will later analyse the footage.

A source said, “There are CCTV cameras in the classrooms and lobbies in the IIT campus that have captured the incident which took place in the exam hall. Between 12.30 and 12.45 pm, just minutes before the paper was to end at 1 pm, it can be seen that the student in question is bending a bit and peeping at something in his pocket. It can be seen in the footage that the professor is seen questioning him about the same. He later takes him to the side, away from other students.”

The source said Wakode was then seen outside the examination hall and, by around 1.25 pm, entering his hostel room, according to CCTV footage from the lobby. “After that the child did not leave his room, and later it came to light that he had died by suicide,” the source said.

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On Monday, the Crime Branch team led by Bansod searched Wakode’s hostel room and conducted a panchnama.

“In an earlier case of student suicide at IIT, the suicide note was not found by the local police and was recovered only later from a book in the room. We want to ensure nothing of this sort happens this time. So far, no suicide note has been found,” the official said.

The official added that no summons had been issued so far and that, in the initial days of the probe, the team would collect all paperwork from Powai police, where the FIR was initially registered. “We have also taken CCTV camera footage and other relevant stuff from his room,” the official added.

The Crime Branch will register an FIR in the IIT Bombay student suicide case after it’s transferred from Powai police. Earlier, the Powai police had registered an FIR under charges of abetment to suicide and relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, naming Suryanarayan Doolla among others, based on a complaint by Wakode’s father Ravindra.

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In his complaint, Ravindra has alleged that Doolla subjected Sahil to caste-based discrimination for the past three months, allegedly on the instructions of the IIT-Bombay Director.