MUMBAI: Ravindra and Sonali Wakode, parents of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode, 20, who on September 18 had died by suicide have petitioned the Bombay high court to seek a “fair and independent investigation” either by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into his death and immediate preservation of evidence and protection of witnesses.The parents in the petition, alleged harassment under the Atrocities Act and said a student who secured a seat on merit “shockingly committed suicide due to abetment by the accused…on caste based humiliation.’’The Mumbai police had lodged an FIR for abetment of suicide against IIT professor Suryanarayan Doolla.The second year BTech student belonged to a scheduled caste and was the only child of his parents.The parents seek that the probe should be directed specifically to the abetment of suicide by actions and illegal omissions made by persons in authority at the IIT and also be monitored by a retired Bombay HC Judge.The statements of students who “suffered at the hands of the accused’’ be recorded before a Magistrate and complete CCTV footage of the examination hall, corridors on the first and second floors, the officer of the HOD and Conference hall ought to be preserved.The petitioners through their advocate Hitendra Gandhi in the petition seek directions to restrain selective release of evidence to media and to protect students and staff who may have witnessed the events of September 18.The petition is expected to be mentioned by advocate Prakash Ambedkar on Monday for an urgent hearing, before the HC.The parents’ “case is that the misuse of power, the humiliate, the threats and deliberate abandonment of every mandatory safeguard by persons legally bound to observe them, by a teacher with known history of harsh…conduct towards students, particularly students from marginalised backgrounds, subjected Sahil to mental torture and amounts to abetment of his suicide by instigation…’’ the petition says.The petition says instead of confiscating their son’s answersheet in the exam-hall on Septmber 18 over an alleged infarction, and giving him a fresh answer sheet as mandated by rules, the professor took him out of the exam hall, “yelled at and berated” him outside and took him to the HOD and “forcibly kept there instead of being permitted to resume the examination.The same evening was their son’s last, the petition said and alleged that “proximity between humiliation, the coerced apology…and his death is direct and immediate.’’The circumstances of the death require a full probe, the parents plead.
