IIT Bombay student’s death: Batchmate held

The Mumbai Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) has arrested a batchmate of IIT Bombay student, Darshan Solanki, in connection with the alleged abetment of his suicide, an official said on Sunday. The accused, identified as Arman Khatri, and Solanki stayed on the same floor of a hostel of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and both were batchmates, he said.
In a purported suicide note recovered by the SIT on 3 March, Solanki had mentioned that “Arman has killed me”, the official said.
Solanki, who hailed from Ahmedabad in Gujarat and was a first-year student of the B Tech (Chemical) course, allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of a hostel building located on the IITB campus in suburban Powai on 12 February this year. The Mumbai police’s SIT recently received a report from a handwriting expert, which said the handwriting in the purported suicide note recovered from the institute’s hostel matched the writing samples of the deceased, confirming that it was written by him, an official earlier said. The Maharashtra government had formed the SIT to conduct a probe into Solanki’s death.
His family had claimed that he faced discrimination at the premier institute for belonging to a Scheduled Caste (SC) community and suspected foul play in his death. However, the inquiry committee set up by the IITB had ruled out caste-based discrimination and hinted at deteriorating academic performance as a possible cause of suicide.