Police yesterday fired water cannons to disperse students protesting against the death of a young Dalit scholar who committed suicide after he was suspended from university, a case some have blamed on caste-based discrimination.
Rohit Vemula, a 26-year-old doctoral student at the University of Hyderabad, was found hanged on Sunday evening, triggering protests in the southern city and New Delhi.
He was one of five students, all Dalits, to be suspended by the university after they were accused of assaulting the head of a rightwing student political group - a charge they denied.
Hyderabad police have registered preliminary cases against the university’s vice-chancellor Appa Rao and federal minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who had called for the university to punish the five.
They face charges of abetting a suicide and under a prevention of atrocities act that is designed to protect low-caste Hindus who have faced historic discrimination and abuse.
“Student activists from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) came to me with a representation,” Dattatreya told reporters while dismissing allegations of his role in the controversy.
The ABVP is the students’ wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
“They were being beaten, assaulted in the university, there were reports of anti-social and anti-national activities. I just forwarded their representation to the ministry and don’t know what happened after that,” Dattatreya said.
Yesterday police fired water cannons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who had gathered outside the office of Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani in New Delhi.
Irani, while expressing sympathy with the student’s family, declined to comment on the incident. She merely said the ministry had no administrative control over central universities.
Hailing from a poor family in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, Vemula in his six-page suicide note said no one was responsible for his suicide.
“I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write,” he wrote.
His mother Radhika along with students and leaders of various Dalit groups staged a sit-in on the campus, demanding that the vice chancellor come to them and explain why her son was suspended.
They blamed Dattetreya, the vice chancellor and ABVP leader Sushil Kumar responsible for the suicide.
Dattetreya, who is minister of state for labour, had written to Irani, demanding action against “anti-national” and “anti-social” elements on the campus, which led to the suspension of the students.
The minister said neither he nor the BJP had anything to do with the suspensions or suicide.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MP K Kavitha alleged that the pressure by the minister on the vice chancellor led to the suspension of five Dalit research scholars.
“This is not a suicide but a murder. There was too much pressure from the administration on the five students,” said Ravneet Param, a graduate student in Delhi.
“They were framed and the people who were behind the fabricated case should face action.”
Hundreds more protested at the university, where police briefly detained eight students.
The government has said it has sent investigators to the university to look into Vemula’s death.