An attempt to kill University of Hyderabad VC, police arrested two alleged Maoists

HYDERABAD: The arrest of two Maoists who had hatched a plan to kill University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, spoiled hopes of the party to garner trust and support of students.

They were said to have believed that by committing the act, it would have led to a lot of students joining the maoist movement.

The Vice-Chancellor was unperturbed by the entire hullabaloo and said he had no comment to make as he had received no direct threat or direct alert from the police. He also added that until he did, he would consider the whole episode inconsequential.

Rohith Vemula’s suicide on January 17, 2016, did shake the nation and sparked a debate against caste discrimination in higher educational institutions.

Sunkanna Velpula, one of the students who was expelled with Vemula, says, “Our movement led to frustration among a few students because it was not bearing any fruit. In 2016 itself, a few students had asked us to approach the Maoists but we declined because our movement would get a negative tinge and active protesters would be labelled as sympathisers of Maoists.”

The accused were also formerly students of the varsity. Universities across the city already made their stance clear by not granting admission to students who were politically active. Scrutinisation of posts of students on social media was also being done by university authorities before admission which had led to widespread protests.

Many educated people trapped by Maoists: SP

An attempt to kill University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao was foiled and East Godavari police arrested two alleged Maoists on Friday.

East Godavari Superintendent of Police Vishal Gunni, who produced the arrested Chandan Kumar Mishra and Ankala Prudvi Raj, told mediapersons here on Saturday that Maoists had hatched a plan to kill Dr Rao. The two were arrested at Pitchukulapadu ‘T’ Junction on the Bhadrachalm-Cherla Road on Friday.

Mr Gunni said that on information, Anti-Naxal Squad personnel were searching vehicles and nabbed the duo. Chandan, 37, and Ankala, 27, met Haribhaushan in December 2017 through a person working on Telangana Vidhya Vedhika and spoke about their interest in Maoist ideology.

The next month they were made to meet Haribhushan in a forest area between Cherala and Venkatapuram. Discussions were also held on the suicide of Vemula Rohith in UoH and its repercussions.

On receipt of call, Ankala along with Chandan later met Haribhushan and revealed the plan and instructed them to leave a few letter heads of Maoists to be dropped at the site after murdering the VC, Mr Gunni said, adding that a number of well-educated persons were being ‘trapped’ by Maoists.

V-C’s security beefed up

Cyberabad Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar said University of Hyderabad V-C Appa Rao was provided with round-the-clock one personal security officer (1+1 security), following a threat after a few incidents at the university. “We will review the security and beef it up depending upon the requirement,” he added.

The Cyberabad police received information from their East Godavari counterparts about the conspiracy of the two Maoist sympathisers to kill the Vice-Chancellor who were arrested on Friday evening.

The police had already provided security to the Vice-Chancellor after the Rohith Vemula issue. The university was on boil after the research scholar committed suicide in July 2015 allegedly due to the harassment of university authorities.

Following the turmoil, students had conducted a protest for days at a stretch resulting in few violent incidents on the campus. Following, an assessment by the intelligence department, the Cyberabad police provided a personal security officer (PSO) to the Vice-Chancellor.