HRD minister Smriti Irani, saying that the government neither intervenes in the functioning of the university nor does it have any administrative control over it, said she would not make any political statement but await the report of the fact-finding committee that had gone to Hyderabad. She added that she shared the grief of the family of the dead student.
The Congress demanded the immediate sacking of Mr Dattatreya in the wake of the FIR filed against him. The party also demanded that the vice-chancellor be removed and HRD minister visit the campus to ensure a probe.
“Now an FIR has been registered against the Union minister and the letter written by him prima facie amounts to abetment of suicide. The Congress demands that Mr Dattatreya resigns with immediate effect, failing which the Prime Minister should sack him,” party spokesman R.P.N. Singh said.
He alleged that the dalit research scholar’s suicide amid circumstances “deliberately orchestrated by Dattatreya, the Union HRD ministry and their cohorts of ABVP” is another manifestation of the “anti-dalit agenda and mindset” of the government and its “controller”, the RSS.
Mr Singh also read out a letter written by scholar Rohit Vemula to the vice-chancellor in which he made sarcastic comments on the scholar’s attitude on issues concerning dalit students, saying that “Donald Trump will be a Liliput” before him.
Alleging that the BJP’s mindset was anti-dalit, he recalled that only recently another Union minister, Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd), had allegedly compared dalit children to dogs.
He said neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor BJP chief Amit Shah has till this day “condemned” RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement calling for a review of the reservation policy for Schdeuled Castes and backward classes.
The CPI-ML alleged that the suicide of the dalit research scholar at the University of Hyderabad was nothing short of institutional murder.
“Vemula was one of the five dalit research scholars and activists of the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) who had been suspended from the university on fabricated charges following instigation by ABVP, BJP MLC Ramachandra Rao, BJP MP and Union minister of state for labour Bandaru Dattatreaya and HRD minister Smriti Irani,” a statement by the party said.
The dead student, Rohit Vemula, was among five research scholars suspended by Hyderabad Central University in August last year and also one of the accused in the case of assault on a student leader. They were also kept out of the hostel.
The Students Federation of India protested outside the HRD ministry in New Delhi against the alleged suicide. The police had to use water cannons to control agitating students, while many of them were also detained in order to bring the situation under control.
