IIT-Bombay student Sahil Wakode died by suicideMUMBAI: “I made a mistake by telling him to tolerate the situation.” This was the regret expressed by the mother of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode, who was found dead in his hostel room last week.

Sahil’s parents on Tuesday demanded the arrest of the institute’s director Shireesh B Kedare and professor Suryanarayana Doolla, news agency PTI reported. Sahil’s mother, Sonali Wakode, said she and her husb and had met their son in his hostel room on September 13, when he told them he was being tortured and harassed.

“We tried to give him moral support and advised him to focus on his studies because he had secured admission to IIT and had a bright future ahead. In hindsight, I feel that telling him to tolerate the situation was our mistake,” she said.

She added, “We persuaded him, told him that he was doing great and his future was bright. Probably, that’s where we faltered as parents.

Had we taken him back home with us, our child would have been alive today. We know how the system works, but he was just a 19-year-old kid.”

The parents made the remarks after visiting the Mumbai Police Crime Branch office, where they demanded a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding their son’s death and action against those found responsible, news agency PTI reported. “He specifically told us that professor Suryanarayana Doolla would say, ‘I am from an upper caste and you are from a lower caste.’

According to what Sahil told us, this had been continuing for around three months,” she claimed. “He used to tell him that he is from the upper caste while Sahil is from the lower caste.

He also told him, ‘I will implicate you in some wrong thing and will remove you.’ This had been happening for the past three months,” Ravindra said.

The parents demanded the immediate arrest of Kedare and Doolla. “The allegations and circumstances recorded in the FIR must be properly investigated, and appropriate action should be taken against those found responsible,” she added.

The mother also objected to the institute’s initial claim that Sahil had allegedly been caught using an AI platform during an examination. “I am also concerned by what appears to be a change in IIT Bombay’s position or statements regarding these allegations.

I request the authorities to examine this carefully and determine whether such allegations have any evidentiary basis or whether they are diverting attention from the issues raised in the FIR,” she said. “My child was good at academics.