Darshan Solanki, a youth from Ahmedabad, who was studying at IIT Bombay, committed suicide on the campus last February. Mumbai’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) has arrested his classmate in this case. Darshan’s classmate Armaan Khatri has been arrested on charges of abetment to suicide. Darshan had committed suicide on February 12 by jumping off the seventh floor of a hostel building on the IIT campus in Powai.
Armaan was mentioned in the suicide note
On investigation, the officer said that in the alleged suicide note received by the SIT on March 3, Darshan Solanki had mentioned that Armaan had killed me. The signature in the purported suicide note recovered from the hostel of the institute matches with the writing pattern of the deceased, confirming that it was written by him. The Maharashtra government had constituted an SIT to probe Solanki’s death. We recorded Khatri’s statement, but he is not giving details about what led to the dispute between them. So, we have arrested him so that we can interrogate him and get the exact sequence of events that led to the fight between Khatri and Solanki.
Armaan was upset with Darshan’s communal comment
A senior police officer said, based on the statements of other students, it emerged that around five days before the suicide, Darshan Solanki had made a communal remark, which angered Khatri. Later Armaan Khatri threatens Cutter and says that he will not leave Darshan. After this Solanki got nervous and apologized to Khatri on two occasions and both hugged. However, it seems that the day before he committed suicide, he was constantly scared and had a fever.
Darshan’s family sued
Earlier, Darshan’s family had claimed that he faced discrimination at the premier institute for belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community. However, an inquiry committee constituted by IIT-B ruled out caste-based discrimination and cited poor academic performance as a possible reason for the suicide.
