Hyderabad scholar death: Protests spread to more cities

As protests over the alleged suicide on Sunday by research scholar Rohoth Vemula at Hyderabad Central University spread to other cities and escalated in Hyderabad and Delhi on Tuesday, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday criticised university vice-chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile and Union minister and BJP MP from Secunderabad Bandaru Dattatreya, holding them responsible for creating conditions which led the research scholar to take his own life. He said they did not act in a fair manner.

Mr Gandhi was speaking after meeting Radhika Vemula and Raja Vemula, mother and brother of Rohith.

Continuing his attack on Prof. Podile, he said the vice-chancellor did not have the basic decency or the dignity to meet the aggrieved mother of Rohith when she came to the university on Monday. He also demanded that Prof. Appa Rao be sacked and that there was no question of him continuing in the university.

Protests also spread to other cities, including Pune, Chennai and Gandhinagar, with the incident being described as “institutional murder”, PTI reported Tuesday.

Activists of the TJYF (Telangana Jagruti Youth Front), a cultural outfit headed by TRS MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha, raised slogans outside the house of Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya at Ram Nagar in Hyderabad and blamed him for the death of the research scholar. “Thirty-seven of the protesters were taken into preventive custody when they held a dharna near the Union minister’s house,” deputy commissioner of police (Central Zone) V.B. Kamalasan Reddy said.

On the university campus, scores of students, who intensified their protests, demanded that Mr Dattatreya, BJP MLC Ramchander Rao, Prof. P. Appa Rao and two ABVP leaders, against whom cases were registered for abetting the suicide, be jailed.

Meanwhile Mr Rahul Gandhi, speaking on the role of universities as places which should play a role in nurturing freedom of expression of students, said educational institutions, instead of letting students speak, are crushing them. Mr Gandhi said Rohith’s death has caused a great loss to the family and that compensation has to be provided to his family along with a job to one family member so that they have a future which Rohith would have built for them.

He also said that all those people who are responsible for Rohith’s death should be punished in the strictest manner possible. He promised Rohith’s family that his doors are always open for them. Sources said Mr Gandhi promised the family that he would do everything possible in New Delhi so that they get justice.

Mr Gandhi also stressed on making a new law in the country to safeguard the interests of students, one which guarantees them some basic minimum rights regardless of social background.

Some ABVA activists tried to block Mr Gandhi’s convoy Tuesday morning in the city when he was on his way to the university from Begumpet.

In the national capital, youth wings of various parties, including AAP and Congress, took to the streets demanding the resignations of HRD minister Smriti Irani and Mr Dattatreya.

While protesters from Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) marched to the HRD ministry shouting slogans against the government, those from AAP’s Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) staged a demonstration at Jantar Mantar. The students of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India in Pune sat on a day-long hungerstrike outside the institute’s gate in “solidarity” with the protesting students in Hyderabad. “We feel that the unfortunate incident... is an institutional murder,” said student body representative Yashaswi Mishra.

Protests were held by workers of Congress and Left parties in Chennai where members of the Scheduled Caste wing of the TNCC, led by K. Selvaperunthagai, tried to picket the Shastri Bhavan there, which houses a number of Central government offices. About 65 Congress workers were detained, police said.

In Gujarat, around 50 dalit students of Central University of Gujarat (CUG) held a peaceful protest in Gandhinagar while in Punjab activists of the Punjab Ambedkar Sena Moolnivasi took out a protest march in Phagwara and burnt an effigy of Ms Irani while demanding the sacking of Mr Dattatreya over the suicide.