An inquiry committee, set up by IIT-Bombay to probe the alleged suicide of Darshan Solanki in February, has found there is “no specific evidence of direct caste-based discrimination” faced by the student and alludes to his “deteriorating academic performance” as a possible cause behind his extreme step.
Solanki, a first-year Chemical engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died by suicide on February 12, a day after his semester exams ended. Solanki’s family alleged he was subjected to caste-based discrimination on campus which drove him to suicide.
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IIT-Bombay constituted a 12-member committee, headed by Professor Nand Kishore of the Chemistry department, to investigate the circumstances leading to his death. The Indian Express has learned the committee submitted its interim report on March 2 and that a copy has also been shared with the Union government.
The inquiry committee, The Indian Express has also learned, has said in its report that only Solanki’s sister has said that her brother had mentioned “caste-related issues faced by some students at IIT Bombay and that he had also faced it himself.”
The report states members of the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle and Ambedkarite Students Collective who deposed before the committee highlighted instances of caste discrimination on campus but “none of them had ever met DS (Darshan Solanki) or directly knew if DS was facing any kind of problem individually.”
“Therefore, other than the statement of DS’s sister, there is no specific evidence of direct caste-based discrimination faced by DS during his stay at IIT Bombay,” the interim report states.
While the committee has ruled out caste discrimination as a cause, it has talked about Solanki’s academic performance in the report. It says except for one subject, Solanki’s performance in all others was “very poor” and that it “deteriorated specifically in the second half of the Autumn semester.”
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“It also appears that DS had difficulties in understanding lectures which might have affected him seriously and he started skipping classes…Therefore, the despair of deteriorating academic performance appears to be a very strong reason which might have affected DS very seriously,” the interim report states.
The committee also said in the report Solanki was planning to go out with his wing-mates for shopping in the afternoon on February 12 and that “some money was transferred to his account by his father”.
“The committee has no information on what happened in the time span after the telephonic call with the family and before the tragic incident. In the absence of call details, forensic analysis of the phone or laptop and post-modern report of Darshan, the committee at present cannot arrive at a final conclusion on what actually triggered him to take this extremely unfortunate step.”
