After the Andhra Pradesh administration has completed its investigation into Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula’s caste antecedents and concluded that he was not a Dalit, Rohith’s brother Raja Vemula told the reporters that his family will fight it out legally.
“The notice was served to us on February 11 and we will fight it out legally. This was an attempt to shield politicians involved in the institutional murder of my brother”. Rohith — PhD student at the University of Hyderabad — had committed suicide on 17 January 2016.
Officials of Guntur, the native district of Rohith and his family, have said in a report that neither Rohith nor his mother were Dalits. Hence his caste certificate as Dalit should be scrapped.
The probe into Rohith’s caste status was launched by Guntur District Collector Kantilal Dande on the request from the Cyberabad Police Commissioner in whose jurisdiction the research scholar had committed suicide in the hostel of Hyderabad Central University.
The debate over Rohith’s caste status had become subject of a raging debate ever since he committed suicide in January last year plunging the Hyderabad Central University into turmoil.
The issue of his caste had become crucial as it was to decide whether the alleged abettors of his suicide could be booked under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act or not.
Guntur officials claimed that the Radhika’s husband Manikumar was a backward caste person belonging to Vaddera community. After separation from him Radhika had lived in a colony meant for Dalits and always claimed herself to be a Dalit.
Though Rohit had a Dalit caste certificate and also claimed so in his educational certificates he secured the admission in Ph.D. in the Hyderabad Central University in general quota on the basis of merit.