IIT Bombay suicide: Mumbai court rejects police's plea for accused Armaan Khatri's remand extension

Mumbai: A special court in the city, on Saturday, rejected city police's plea for IIT Bombay student Armaan Khatri's remand extension. Khatri was arrested in connection with suicide of his batchmate Darshan Solanki and is remanded in judicial custody.

Khatri was arrested after the SIT probing his death found a 'suicide note' that mentioned him as the reason for Solanki's demise.

Court extended accused's custody till April 15

The court designated under SC/ST Act had previously extended Khatri's coustody till April 15 after the police added charges.

Reportedly, the police had learnt through witnesses that Solanki had offensively spoken to Islam and had repeatedly apologised to Khatri but latter threatened him with paper cutter.

Other students had tried to pacify Solanki, the police learnt during the probe. They also told court that they expect to retrieve data from Khatri's phone and interrogate him and thus require his custody.

Charge under SC/ST Act

The charge under the SC/ST Act stems from an offence committed against a person with the knowledge that the person belongs to the SC/ST community.

Victim's father urged police to stress on caste angle

Meanwhile, Ramesh Bhai Solanki, the father of the deceased, on Wednesday wrote to Joint Police Commissioner L Gautam, who is heading the SIT, that the caste angle should not be ignored.

Recently, Solanki’s sister found a few chats on his social media account in which another account holder called ‘Sam Rajput’ asked him a question that revealed his caste. According to the sister, Solanki went on to say in the chat that “now even Sam will not like him as he knows his caste”.

Ramesh Solanki has urged the senior police officer to investigate this angle, too.