Friends of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode have rejected claims that caste discrimination was the reason behind his death, while the campus continues to face scrutiny over allegations of discrimination and the administration’s response to student protests.
Wakode, 22, was a second-year undergraduate student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering. His death prompted protests by students on the campus and led the administration to report action against a professor whose name was included in the first information report, according to Loksatta’s report citing PTI.
The developments have produced competing accounts of the circumstances surrounding Wakode’s death. One group of students has alleged that caste discrimination was a factor, while another group has rejected that explanation. Wakode’s friends, speaking to PTI after his death, described him as cheerful and open in his interactions and said they had not noticed any unusual change in his behaviour.
One student told PTI that nobody had imagined Wakode would take his own life. The student said he had met Wakode four or five days before an examination and found him behaving as usual, speaking freely and appearing happy. The account, however, does not establish the cause of the death or resolve the competing claims about the campus environment.
The case has brought attention to how allegations involving caste, student welfare and faculty conduct are handled within a premier public institution. The student protests and the reported administrative action indicate that the issue has moved beyond a private tragedy and become a matter of campus governance and institutional accountability.
The available report does not provide details of the action taken against the professor, the contents of the first information report, or the findings of any official inquiry. It also does not establish whether caste discrimination contributed to Wakode’s death. Those questions remain central to understanding the case and cannot be settled by either the friends’ account or the allegations alone.
For IIT Bombay, the immediate institutional challenge is to respond to the competing claims while maintaining a credible process for addressing student grievances and reviewing faculty conduct. Further clarity will depend on the police investigation, the administration’s formal statements and any findings from an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Wakode’s death.
