IIT-B student dies after fall from hostel’s sixth floor
Mumbai Mirror | Sep 5, 2014, 01.16 AM IST
Arita Sarkar and Vikrant Dadawala
Institute says he slipped while speaking on phone. Cops haven't ruled out suicide or foul play yet.
A 22-year-old Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay student was found dead on Thursday after falling from the sixth floor of one of the hostels on campus.
A student who saw fourth year dualdegree student Aniket Ambhore fall alerted his classmates and the hostel warden, who rushed him to Ghatkopar's Rajawadi Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
While the IIT administration said Ambhore slipped and fell, occupants of the 7-floor Hostel 13 who spoke to Mirror said the floor did not have any openings and the parapet, too, was quite high.
However, some students from Hostel 13 said cellular network was bad in the building and that it is not uncommon for students to lean out of the balcony while on their cell phones.
An electrical engineering student specialising in communication and signal processing, Ambhore lived in Hostel 1, which students said is far from where he was found.
Rashmi Sablani, IIT's public relations officer, said, "We spoke to an eyewitness who confirmed Ambhore was talking on the phone in a sixth-floor balcony and slipped."
While the official line is the death was a result of an accident, the police said they are not ruling out either suicide or foul play at the moment.
Senior Inspector YL Jadhav said: "We have registered a case of accidental death. But we are investigating whether it is a suicide or an accident or if there was foul play."
Ambhore's friends told Mirror that it was unlikely that he would kill himself. "It is not like Ambhore to even think of suicide," said a close friend, requesting anonymity. "He was good at what he did. He was part of a rock band and came from a happy family. I really do not know what to make of the incident."
Ambhore, a resident of Airoli, Navi Mumbai, completed SSC at DAV Public School, Airoli, and subsequently finished his higher secondary certificate from MH Junior College in Thane before joining IIT. His mother Sunita is a lecturer in a Navi Mumbai college while his father is a manager in a public sector bank. He has a younger sister.
