Police entered the IIT Bombay campus on Sunday and allegedly beat and kicked students protesting caste discrimination, with a student complaining that her clothes were torn and that women students were “touched inappropriately”.
Students have been protesting near the institute gate for a month demanding accountability for the alleged suicide by Sahil Wakode, a Dalit BTech student. They have been demanding that the IIT administration adopt certain measures to end caste discrimination on the campus.
“The police assaulted the students, kicked them on the stomach, choked them and tore the clothes of many students. They did not spare the girl students,” a woman student told The Telegraph from Mumbai, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
“Police touched female students inappropriately. My dress has been torn. You can imagine the police brutality. The institute used the police as it has no answer to the demands of the students.”
Sahil’s parents have filed an FIR alleging that he had been subjected to caste discrimination by a professor, Suryanarayana Doolla.
On Sunday, the Mumbai Police entered the campus twice. They detained eight protesting students in the morning, took them to Rambaug police station and released them after an hour.
As the students continued their protests, the police entered the campus again in the afternoon and evicted them from the site by force, students who spoke to this newspaper said.
The police cannot enter campuses unless called by the administration. The students alleged that the IIT authorities had called the police to break up the protest because they were unwilling to accept their demands.
Among the students’ demands are the suspension of Doolla from the post of professor, a transparent inquiry into Sahil’s death, a clear code of conduct for faculty, reforms to the institute’s mental health support system for students, and increased student representation in various committees.
Sahil allegedly killed himself last month after Doolla asked him to leave an exam hall midway during a test. The institute claimed the student had been found cheating but later withdrew the statement and apologised. The matter is under investigation.
This newspaper sent an email to the IIT Bombay director, Shireesh B. Kedare, seeking to know who had invited police on the campus and what actions had been taken to fix accountability for Sahil’s death. His response is awaited.
Police at Jamia
The Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi, where students are agitating for the restoration of the students’ union through elections, has witnessed heavy police deployment on the campus since Saturday.
The central university has not had a students’ union for the last two decades.
A group of students had begun a hunger strike on October 12. On October 17, the university rusticated Ebin Basil for one year and imposed a six-month entry ban on two other students.
On Saturday, the Delhi Police and security guards forcibly evicted about 100 agitating students from the protest site. Over 30 students were taken away to a police station. After they were released, the police and security guards refused to let them re-enter the campus. But the protests continued on the campus on Sunday.