‘Escalation’, ‘threatening slogans’: IIT Delhi director warns protesting students

“… On that night, from 10.30 pm to 12.30 am, a group of protestors extended their agitation into the campus residential zones, staging demonstrations directly in front of faculty housing and resorting to unsavoury, humiliating and threatening language in their slogans,” he said.

“Such behaviour compromises the safety, privacy, and peace of faculty members and their families, including young children and elderly dependents. The Institute will take disciplinary actions against individuals disrupting the peaceful functioning of the campus including residential areas, classes, academic and other activities,” Banerjee added.

On the specific steps taken in Kumar’s case, Banerjee wrote in the same communication: “The External Inquiry committee has started functioning. Institute support for the family from the Benevolent Fund has been approved and the separate fund with voluntary contributions from faculty, students and staff has been created. The External Ombudsperson will be appointed next week. We have continued to engage with our student representatives and other students in good faith.”

Rishikesh Kumar suicide

The sudden enforcement of strict entry checks is a direct fallout of the intense student protests and heightened administrative friction currently gripping the campus. 

Kumar allegedly died by suicide after jumping from the sixth floor of a building on campus on Saturday. The Delhi Police have registered an FIR for abetment of suicide against unknown persons.

Students have sought an independent inquiry into Kumar’s death, resignation of the Dean, Associate Dean (Student Welfare), Associate Dean (Hostel Management) and Head of the Physics Department, and at least Rs 1 crore in compensation for his family. They maintained that Kumar’s death was the eighth suicide on campus since 2023.

In a separate communication to the students, the head of security wrote on the same day: “All are requested to use the gate cautiously while entering or exiting the premises.” 

Reacting to this, a PhD student said on the condition of anonymity, “Honestly, they used to just let friends walk right onto campus, but now they’re making us carry physical ID cards… which has never happened before.”

‘Sustain yourself, sustain the protest, hope’

As the protest entered its fifth day on Friday, students also braced for the possibility that the mobilisation could lose momentum during the upcoming holidays.

“The protestors who have been here constantly are rather tired. But as long as somebody keeps showing up, and the protest does not die down completely, it has the potential to come back even stronger once these holidays end,” an internal message circulated among students said.

“A protest is usually successful only when it is long-drawn. Waiting it out is an effective strategy on the administration’s part,” it said, noting that students were already facing the consequences of missing academic work while attending protests.

Referring to the challenges faced by protesters the student wrote: “Do not let them deter you or make you lose your hope in this protest… Sustain yourself, sustain the protest, sustain your hope.”