Suicides Raise Questions on Students’ Support Systems
Shuriah Niazi | 02 October 2026 | University World News
Sahil Wakode, a 20-year-old second-year BTech student at IIT Bombay, recently died by suicide in his hostel room. Just hours earlier, he had been caught using his phone during a mid-semester examination. Wakode belonged to the Scheduled Caste community. Scheduled castes and tribes are groups listed under the Indian constitution as being ‘particularly disadvantaged’. Federally funded higher education institutions ‘reserve’ 7.5% of places for Scheduled Tribes and 15% for Scheduled Castes, which include Dalits – formerly known as ‘untouchables’.
Since 2008, an additional 22.5% of places have been reserved for other socially, educationally and economically disadvantaged students, or so-called OBCs, in a bid to promote affirmative action. Following Wakode’s death on September 18, students staged massive protests, his parents undertook a hunger strike, and alumni wrote a joint open letter demanding that the faculty be sensitised and calling for an impartial investigation into the matter.
His family filed a police complaint against a professor and institute officials. The case is now being jointly investigated by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch and the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC). Professor Sukhdeo Thorat, professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and former chair of the University Grants Commission (UGC), said the developments at IIT Bombay highlight wider concerns about caste inequality and social inclusion in India’s elite higher education institutions.