Ramesh Solanki, the father of Darshan Solanki—the 18-year-old student who allegedly died by suicide at IIT-B on Feb 12, has told mid-day his son never mentioned the classmate whose name was discovered in a suicide note found by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on March 3 in his hostel room. Although the parents have identified the handwriting as that of their son, reports from handwriting experts are awaited.
 
According to the SIT, which was formed by the state government to look into the incident in the wake of outrage by the family and various groups, the note was discovered during their investigation and contained one line: “(Student’s name) has killed me.” Ramesh expressed his doubts about the identity of the student mentioned in the note, stating, “He never mentioned the name of the student to us, so we are a little uncertain about it.”

‘Taunted over caste’

Darshan had confided in his family about the caste-based discrimination he had been experiencing since receiving a scholarship under the central government’s national scholarship programme. He had informed them that some students were taunting him because he belonged to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category. “This was the cause of immense mental anguish for him,” Ramesh told the police in his statement.