Mumbai Police detained the parents of deceased IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode and protesting students on Sunday, October 18, while clearing and demolishing a protest site near the institute’s main gate, according to a report by The Indian Express. The action came a month after Wakode died by suicide on September 18 and as his family and students continued to seek answers on the campus.
Ravindra and Sonali Wakode had arrived at IIT Bombay to pay homage to their son. Ravindra Wakode also submitted a letter to the institute’s Registrar before sitting at the protest site with student protesters, the report said.
The family’s lawyer, Siddhartha Ingale, said the couple were detained soon after Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad left the site after meeting them. Ingale said he was detained along with the parents and that police were taking them to Azad Maidan police station.
“The parents were only sitting at the protest site, where the father had submitted a letter to the Registrar. Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad was present to meet them. But soon after she left, the police detained the parents along with me and the protesting students,” Ingale was quoted as saying.
The protest had continued for about a month near the institute’s main gate. Earlier on Sunday, around 10 students were detained from the site before Wakode’s parents arrived. They were released shortly afterwards and returned to join the protest in support of the family, according to the report.
Ingale said police later asked Ravindra Wakode to leave the site. He refused to do so until the detained student activists were released, following which he and his wife were detained, the lawyer said. Around 16 students present at the site were also allegedly taken away in a police bus as the protest site was cleared and demolished.
The reported sequence places the institute’s main gate at the centre of a dispute involving student protest, family grievance and police management of an on-campus gathering. The available account does not include a statement from Mumbai Police or IIT Bombay explaining the grounds for the detentions or the demolition.
Wakode’s parents had returned to the campus both to remember their son and to pursue their concerns through the institute. The submission of a letter to the Registrar indicates that the family’s interaction with IIT Bombay’s administration was continuing alongside the protest action.
The immediate next step reported by the lawyer was the movement of those detained to Azad Maidan police station. Further details on their release, any police action or the institute’s response were not available in the supplied report.
