On Monday, student representatives at IIT-Bombay addressed the recent death of a second-year BTech student. In their statement, they expressed their concerns regarding the administration’s handling of the situation and called for the resignation of Prof Suryanarayana Doolla, the dean of administrative affairs. The students emphasized the need for accountability and better support for the student community during such crises.
Professor Suryanarayana Doolla was suspended as IIT-Bombay’s dean of administrative affairs on Monday. Doolla was the invigilator who had caught the student cheating during an exam on Friday. “The protest initiated by students was not intended to justify academic misconduct.
It was a collective effort to raise concerns about systemic issues that have existed for some time and to seek meaningful and strong institutional reforms so that no student has to face circumstances of this nature again…,” the student representatives said, according to a statement shared by news agency ANI .
However, student representatives said in a statement that they stood with the professor as “member of our faculty community”. They also said that the concerns arising from the student’s death must be addressed within the institute, and that the incident shouldn’t become a platform “for external political interests, organisations, or narratives”.
As stated in an earlier HT report, he has been charged with abetment to suicide and alleged discrimination on the basis of caste.
The student’s family has demanded a CBI inquiry into his alleged suicide, seeking a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death and action against those found responsible, according to ANI.
“Our demand was that he be relieved of his administrative duties as Dean of Administrative Affairs during the pendency of the investigation, as a precautionary measure to ensure that the investigation remains completely independent and cannot be influenced in any manner,” the statement read.
