Mumbai: The parents of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode who died by suicide on Sept 18 have sought a forensic analysis of handwriting in the apology letter given by their son, saying he had not written it.Under the Atrocities Act, the parents were recently allowed to access the documents seized in Sahil’s case by the crime branch. His father, Ravindra Wakode, in a media interaction, said “the apology letter was not written by his son”. The institute had said that Sahil was caught copying in his exam. Subsequent to that, he had given a written apology.In another development, the parents, along with a delegation of Congress leaders led by Varsha Gaikwad, met the state’s director general of police (DGP) on Monday and submitted their representation. Along with the update on the case so far and their concerns, the parents have alleged that one of the pages from Sahil’s answer sheet from the examination held on Sept 18 was missing. They claimed that a missing page from a document directly related to the alleged exam malpractice in the case is a very serious matter and should be brought on record. The family’s lawyer Siddharth Ingle said, “The printed answer sheet had only five questions and the page with question number 3 was missing from the document. We brought it to the notice of the investigating officer.”In the letter to the DGP, the parents have sought details of the answer sheet’s seizure, including the date, person responsible, number of pages recorded, sealing and subsequent handling, as well as confirmation of whether any original or scanned copies were available and whether the missing page had been traced. They have also sought an inquiry into the alleged missing CCTV footage from the institute.On Saturday, the parents also wrote a letter to IIT Bombay’s Board of Governors (BoG), through their advocate, seeking a copy of the interim report of the institute’s internal committee in the matter. They wrote that if the report is not finalised, the committee’s proceedings, preliminary findings and recommendations concerning Sahil’s death should be shared with them, as they are not an ‘unrelated third party’ and the disclosure is essential for the family to understand if all relevant aspects have been examined.The parents have demanded the reasons for withholding any information on grounds of confidentiality or the pending criminal investigation. They claimed that “the family should not be kept uninformed indefinitely about the outcome of an inquiry undertaken by the institution, where their son was studying”.
