Hyderabad: “Do you want to give us justice or not,” Radhika Vemula, mother of research scholar Rohith Vemula who committed suicide, asked of the Centre and the state government on Friday.
“Why is it that vice-chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile is being allowed to continue despite a police case and judicial inquiry against him? Are we not being served justice because we are Dalits,” Radhika Vemula asked while speaking to the media.
Rohith’s brother Raja Vemula asked, “Why has no action been taken against people including Prof. Appa Rao against whom a SC / ST atrocity case was booked? On the other hand, students who have been peacefully protesting for months are being targeted, arrested and thrown into jail. The VC should have been arrested within 24 hours of booking the case as per law. The police should immediately arrest the VC.”
He also questioned the delay in hearing the bail petitions of UoH students and faculty members who had been arrested after Wednesday’s violence. The hearings are scheduled for Monday.
Mr Raja Vemula said, “If Prof. Appa Rao did not commit any wrong, why did he try to meet me and my mother like a thief at night in our house without talking to us directly? When we tried to enter the university we were not allowed to do so. But so many policemen are allowed to stay inside the campus.”
He said that Union minister Smriti Irani had “called my brother a son. Why is she silent when so many of her sons at the University of Hyderabad are arrested? If I question the Centre, may be they will call me anti-national.” He demanded that the arrested students and teachers be released unconditionally.
Alumni against VC’s return
A group of 274 alumni of University of Hyderabad came out with an open letter against the return of Prof Appa Rao Podile as Vice Chancellor of the university, saying it led to police brutality on the UoH campus.
They said in their letter that in the light of the issue surrounding Rohith Vemula’s suicide in UoH, citizens should keep asking unpleasant questions that Rohith’s suicide has raised, questions about persistence of caste in educational institutions and the present government’s apathy and refusal to hold the university administration accountable.
