‘No faith in police': Parents of IIT Bombay student seek fair probe, to move high court

The family's lawyer added that the protest at the IIT-B gate would go ahead even if the Powai police did not grant permission.

Parents of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) student who died by suicide last month said on Tuesday that they would move the Bombay High Court seeking a fair probe and a change in the investigating officer of the case as they were dissatisfied with the ongoing investigation by the Mumbai police crime branch.

Parents of the deceased student have been on a hunger strike for 21 days (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The parents also said that they would shift their protest seeking justice for their deceased son from Azad Maidan to the main gate of the IIT-B campus in Powai later this week, as no authorities from the institute had responded to their concerns over the past 21 days.

Speaking to reporters at Azad Maidan on Tuesday, the student’s father said, “We have lost faith in the investigating agencies. We have been sitting on a hunger strike for the last 21 days. We have written letters to the chief minister and police authorities, seeking a change in the investigating officer, but we have not received any response. We have finally decided to shift our protest to the main gate of IIT Bombay. We will inform the police about our protest.”

Advocate Siddharth Ingale, the family’s lawyer, said the protest at the IIT-B gate would go ahead even if the Powai police did not grant permission as his clients had the right to know the circumstances surrounding their son’s death. He also said that the parents had decided to approach the high court as they were dissatisfied with the ongoing investigation.

“The investigation is moving in one direction, and it appears that the authorities are trying to protect the accused. The police have not even sent a notice to the accused (Professor Suryanarayana Doolla) named in the FIR for questioning. The accused seems confident that he will not be arrested and has not even applied for anticipatory bail,” Ingale said.

The father of the deceased student alleged that the institute had provided only select CCTV footage to the investigating agencies, and footage showing what happened inside the room where Prof Doolla took his son after finding that he was allegedly cheating during an exam was missing.

“When we saw the CCTV footage, there was no footage of the room where Professor Suryanarayan Doolla took my son and called other professors. We could see my son coming out of the room, but footage showing the professors coming out was not available,” he said.

The student was found dead in his hostel room on September 18, hours after being caught allegedly copying during the mid-semester exam. His parents have alleged that he faced harassment and casteist remarks and was forced to leave the classroom during the examination, causing him immense stress. They have also raised concerns over missing CCTV footage from the day of his death.