Even as the Hyderabad Central University revoked the suspension of four research scholars on Thursday, the protest against Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani and Minister of State for labour Bandaru Dattatrey over the suicide of Rohith Vemula has refused to subside. The five students, including Rohith, all activists of Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA), were barred from the university hostel and other facilities last month for assaulting a leader of ABVP.
Taking umbrage at Irani’s statement, at least 20 Dalit teachers of the university announced their resignation from the administrative duties on Thursday. Prakash Babu, a leader of SC/ST Teachers and Officers Forum charged Irani with demoralising Dalits in the university. Irani had claimed that a senior Dalit professor headed the university Executive Council sub-committee which suspended the students, while in fact the committee was headed by “upper caste” Professor Vipin Srivastava.
Meanwhile, the two-member fact-finding committee of the HRD Ministry has blamed the university for mishandling the affairs that led to the tragic suicide of Rohith, sources said. It has recommended the sacking of Vice Chancellor P Appa Rao.
Earlier, announcing the decision to revoke suspension of the students, a statement of the Executive Council of the university said, “The council, after taking into account the extraordinary situation prevailing in the university, and after discussing the issue in detail, resolved to terminate the punishment imposed on the students concerned with immediate effect.”
The Joint Action Committee, which is waging the struggle for the rights of Dalit students said it will continue the agitation till all its major demands are met. In a statement the JAC demanded that cases under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act should be slapped on VC, Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, BJP MlC Ramachandra Rao, and ABVP leader Susheel Kumar.
The members of Dalit (SC/ST) Faculty of Hyderabad University said, “Such a baseless and misleading statement coming from Honourable Minister of HRD amounts to bringing down the morale of the Dalits holding administrative positions in this university as well as other universities.”
The body added that it is unfortunate that since its inception, no Dalit representation has been there in the Executive Council of University of Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, ABVP leader Susheel Kumar, who is named as an accused in the case of abetting suicide of Rohith, demanded a “fair” enquiry into the incident and denied
that he had lied about being manhandled by Rohith and other students of ASA on August 3 last year.
“Reasons for Rohith’s suicide should be thoroughly examined. When a person like Rohith could confront so many people like us (and) also there was hearing by the High Court in two days, what made him go into depressionIJ” asked Kumar.