Locked iPhone 17 Slows IIT Bombay Death Probe as Parents Begin Hunger Strike

A pattern-locked iPhone 17 has become a focal point of the Mumbai Crime Branch's investigation into the death of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode, with investigators unable to determine whom he called or who called him in the hours surrounding his death.

Wakode, a 22-year-old second-year student in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, was found hanging in his hostel room on the evening of September 18. He had been asked to leave a mid-semester examination earlier that day, allegedly after being caught using a mobile phone to access ChatGPT.

Sources said the phone's encrypted data cannot be accessed without the pattern, and while the Crime Branch has forensic tools capable of extracting data from older iPhone models, technical difficulties have emerged with the newer iPhone 17. Investigators are exploring assistance from other agencies or specialists with advanced digital-forensic capabilities.

The phone is seen as potentially crucial to establishing what Wakode searched for or accessed during the examination and what he did after leaving the hall. His laptop has also been seized and sent for forensic examination, and CCTV footage from the examination hall, campus and hostel is being reviewed.

According to sources, Wakode left the examination hall at 12:38 pm and reached his hostel room at 1:25 pm — a gap of roughly 47 minutes that investigators are trying to account for by correlating phone data, laptop evidence, CCTV footage, call detail records and witness statements.

The Crime Branch has so far recorded statements from 20 people, including students present in the examination hall, teachers who supervised the exam, and hostel staff. The statement of Professor Suryanarayana Doolla, named in an FIR alleging abetment to suicide on grounds of caste discrimination, has not yet been recorded. Doolla has been sent on leave to facilitate an impartial probe.

A CCTV clip purportedly from an examination hall has circulated widely, showing a student in the front row leaving while others continue writing. Social media users have identified the student as Wakode, though his identity cannot be independently confirmed from the footage. CCTV reportedly shows Doolla asking Wakode to leave the hall.

Wakode's father, asked about the viral clip, said the matter was for the investigation and questioned why the full video had not been released, pointing to a series of student deaths on the campus in recent months. Wakode's was the third student suicide at IIT Bombay this year.

On Thursday, his parents, Ravindra and Sonali Wakode, began a hunger strike at Mumbai's Azad Maidan seeking action against those they describe as their son's tormentors. The institute deferred its mid-semester examinations the same day and reissued an apology for an earlier communication that had stated Wakode cheated using ChatGPT and linked his death to it, saying the circumstances remain subject to investigation. IIT Bombay has also constituted a 10-member committee to examine the case, and security outside the campus has been tightened.