Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
No one is saying what happened in 30 minutes, claims IIT-B student’s father
MUMBAI: “On February 12, at exactly 12.30 pm, I got a call from Darshan. He was very happy. The exam went well. He was planning to call all his relatives on February 14. And around 1 am, Darshan died. No one is giving me an answer as to what exactly happened in these 30 minutes. Will anyone answer me?” Darshan’s father, Ramesh Solanki, asked the IITB administration at a protest on Saturday.
Darshan Solanki, a 19-yearold Dalit student studying at IIT Bombay, died by jumping from the 7th floor. Alleging that the suicide was due to caste discrimination, various organisations staged a protest on Saturday. Darshan’s father, mother, sister and other 25 relatives had come to Mumbai.
“Darshan was brilliant from a young age. Living on daily wages, we didn’t even know what IIT was. But he found out about it on the internet and he was determined to get into it. He could not clear in his first attempt, so he dropped a year. He fulfilled his dream of taking the entrance exam again. But we didn’t think his dream would take such a turn,” said Ramesh, teary-eyed.
His sister, Janhvi Solanki, claimed that Darshan said that other students were not helping him. “Darshan told me that caste discrimination was happening in IIT, but we didn’t pay much attention to it,” she added.
His father demanded that the incident be investigated by a scheduled caste officer rather than the present officers of the Powai Police Station. “Though the Maharashtra government and the Gujarat government are cooperating with us, we have not received even a single courtesy call from the IIT administration,” alleged his father.
Since 2014, 122 students have died by suicide in centrally funded higher education institutions. Most of these students belong to the SC, ST, or OBC communities.