It has been three long years since the tragic passing of Darshan Solanki, a bright young Hindu Dalit student whose dreams were cut short at the esteemed Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay). In a significant legal development this Wednesday, April 15th, a special court officially framed charges against his batchmate, Arman Iqbal.

The charges levied are severe, encompassing criminal intimidation and the abetting of a suicide. This judicial step effectively pierces through the initial fabrications woven by certain leftist factions, who had hastily constructed a narrative of caste-based prejudice to obscure the actual facts of the matter.

The formal booking of Arman involves stringent legal parameters. He has been charged under Sections 306 and 506 (2) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deal specifically with abetting suicide and criminal intimidation, respectively. Furthermore, he faces charges under the pertinent sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. With the accused formally entering a plea of ‘not guilty’ before the judge, the stage is now firmly set for the judicial trial to commence.

Reports indicate that Special Public Prosecutor Prakash Salsingikar presented the draft charges to the court. This legal foundation was meticulously built upon concrete chargesheet evidence, relying heavily on sworn witness testimonies and a heartbreaking suicide note discovered within the confines of Darshan Solanki’s dormitory room.

Tracing the Origins of the Investigation

To fully grasp the gravity of Wednesday's court proceedings, one must look back at the origins of this deeply unsettling case. Darshan Solanki originally hailed from the bustling city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. His journey at the prestigious engineering institute came to a devastating halt on February 12, 2023, when the young student ended his life by leaping from the seventh floor of his campus hostel building. Almost immediately after the tragedy, the campus and the wider public were engulfed in rampant speculation regarding the underlying causes of his untimely demise.

A prominent campus organization known as the ‘Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC)’ swiftly seized the narrative. They loudly alleged that the young man was driven to suicide due to ‘caste discrimination’. Taking their claims a step further, the group hastily branded the heartbreaking event an ‘institutional murder.’ In their rush to assign blame, the APPSC even attempted to wrongly accuse Darshan Solanki’s immediate roommate of ‘abetment of suicide.’ Expectedly, various familiar commentators joined this chorus, declaring that the victim died as a result of ‘caste discrimination’ long before the Powai police in Mumbai or the IIT-Bombay administration had even concluded their preliminary, fact-finding investigations. Additionally, the leftist media portal Newslaundry capitalized on the sorrowful event, pushing the narrative of ‘caste discrimination’ by highlighting the campus culture where students casually inquired about each other's Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) ranks.

However, the official probes painted a distinctly different picture. By March 2023, a dedicated internal committee established by IIT-Bombay released its findings, concluding that there was “no specific evidence of direct caste-based discrimination” that could have resulted in the death of Darshan Solanki. Instead, the investigative panel pointed toward his “deteriorating academic performance” as a heavy burden and a highly probable reason for his decision to take his own life.

The true turning point in the investigation arrived on April 9, 2023. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai Police apprehended a 19-year-old fellow student, Arman Iqbal Khatri, linking him directly to the former's suicide. The SIT's crucial piece of evidence was the harrowing suicide note recovered from the victim's personal space, containing a chillingly brief accusation: “Arman has killed me.” Rigorous analysis by handwriting experts confirmed without a doubt that the suicide note was indeed written by Darshan Solanki. As investigators dug deeper during the inquiry, a pattern of alleged harassment began to surface, suggesting that Arman's actions might have forced the victim to end his life.

It later emerged that Arman Malik and Solanki resided on the exact same floor of the IIT-Bombay hostel. The day before he took his final, fatal step—on February 11—a distressed Solanki confided in a peer about feeling profoundly threatened by Arman. In a formal statement to the police, this student recalled that when he met Darshan Solanki, the latter explicitly warned him to “not be seen with him or else Khatri would harm him as well”.

Once Arman Iqbal’s role in the unfortunate death of Darshan Solanki emerged from the shadows, the leftist cabal that was aggressively lampooning the ‘caste discrimination’ theory noticeably went into hiding.

Arman Iqbal managed to secure bail a month later, in May 2023. Controversially, he then continued his studies at IIT-Bombay. Two years later, in 2025, he approached the Bombay High Court to seek the quashing of all charges against him, but he later withdrew the petition. Now, three long years after Solanki’s death, Arman will finally stand trial in a special court to answer for the grave accusations of criminal intimidation and abetment of suicide.