The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has begun analysing CCTV footage from the examination hall, campus grounds and hostel premises to trace the movements of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode before his death by suicide, an official said on Tuesday.
Wakode, 22, a second-year BTech student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, was found hanging in his hostel room on the Powai campus on the evening of 18 September. Officials said he had allegedly been caught using a mobile phone to access ChatGPT during a mid-semester examination earlier that day.
The case was transferred to the Crime Branch on 19 September for further investigation following widespread protests by students on the campus.
According to officials, CCTV cameras inside the examination hall captured Wakode's movements before a professor approached him and took him away from the other students after he was allegedly caught copying.
Footage from the campus subsequently showed Wakode walking towards his hostel room after leaving the examination hall. He was not seen leaving the room thereafter, an official said.
He was later found dead inside his hostel room.
Investigators are now compiling and cross-referencing CCTV feeds from multiple locations across the institute to establish Wakode's movements and reconstruct the sequence of events leading up to his death.
The campus witnessed protests following the incident, prompting police to strengthen security arrangements.
Student representatives said their agitation was not intended to defend academic misconduct, but to draw attention to broader systemic concerns and seek institutional reforms.
A student delegation has submitted a list of demands to the IIT Bombay Director, who acknowledged their concerns and assured them that the demands would be addressed within specified timelines, officials said.
(With inputs from PTI)
