University representatives from state will travel to Delhi over Rohith Vemula

Around 500 students and representatives from various universities and institutions in the state will at New Delhi to intensify their demand for Justice for Rohith Vemula, the dalit PhD scholar who committed suicide. The delegation under the banner of Joint Action Committee for Rohith will be part of a nationwide movement to build pressure on the government to apprehend those who drove the dalit scholar to commit suicide as well as drop the cases against five other scholars.

Speaking about the decision to converge at New Delhi on February 23 and 24, a spokesperson for the JAC Justice for Rohith said that the JNU incident was important but so was the Vemula incident. “As the JNU incident has taken center stage, the government is trying to brush away the Rohith incident but we have decided to keep it alive and will be converging at New Delhi along with students from other states to push for justice for Rohith.”

A demand that action should be taken against the persons responsible for forcing Vemula to take the drastic step of ending his life in the hostel room of Hyderabad Central University in January will be the thrust of the protest. “We will also be demanding that the cases against the other dalit scholars be dropped and they be reinstated unconditionally,” said the JAC spokesperson.

Students from University of Mumbai, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, SNDT Women’s University, UDCT from Mumbai and those from Pune University, Kolhapur University, Dr Ambedkar Marathwada University, Nagpur University and other institutions will make up the 500-strong delegation from the state. They will also be presenting a memorandum to the Centre and demand that the Vemula and JNU cases be dealt with democratically.