RohitSuicide: VC maybe sacked
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]he Vice Chancellor (VC) of the Hyderabad University, Appa Rao, is likely get the boot over the suicide of Dalit students Rohit Vemula after a two-member fact-finding committee of the Human resource ministry has blamed the University administration for mishandling the entire situation that led to the suspension of Rohit and others.
Sources said that the committee submitted its report to the HRD minister Smriti Irani on Thursday night. The committee has not recommended the removal of the VC, sources said, but the content of its report is likely to come handy for the HRD to get rid of Rao.
Rao has the dubious track record of unfairly treating Dalit students in the past also. The government, which has so far tacitly backed the VC, has few options but to make him the villain of the piece to deflect attention from the demand for removal of Irani and minister of state for labor Bandaru Dattatreya.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]S[/dropcap]ources said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was himself seized with the situation and was considering tough action to send a message that his government and the party was not anti-dalit. Removal of the VC will be first action in that direction.
Earlier, the Hyderabad University on Thursday revoked the suspension of four Dalit research scholars, but students continued to protest for the fifth day over the suicide of a Dalit student who too had been suspended.
Addressing the protesting students at the campus, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack his ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya over the suicide by Rohith Vemula.
And protesting against Human Resource Development Minister Irani’s “misleading” statement, 10 Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe teachers quit their administrative roles.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]U[/dropcap]nder attack, the university’s executive council decided to revoke the suspension of four students who along with Rohith were suspended in November after an alleged clash with an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leader. The ABVP is the student wing of the RSS.
“After taking into account the extraordinary situation in the university, it resolved to terminate the punishment imposed on the students with immediate effect,” a university statement said.
Vice Chancellor P. Appa Rao urged the university community to maintain harmony.
Slamming Irani’s statement that a Dalit headed the committee which expelled the five Dalit students including Vemula, 10 teachers quit their administrative posts and joined the students on protest.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]K[/dropcap]ejriwal visited the campus and sought the dismissal of Irani and Minister of State for Labour Dattatreya whose letters to the HRD ministry on the alleged assault on the ABVP leader reportedly forced the university to suspend Vemula – son of a farm worker – and the others.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader also asked Irani to apologize for “playing dirty caste politics” over Vemula’s suicide. Modi “should dismiss both the ministers”, he said to applause.
He demanded that Irani’s name should be included in the FIR filed against Dattetreya, the vice chancellor and two ABVP leaders.
In New Delhi, the AAP demanded the arrest of Dattatreya, the BJP MP from Secunderabad.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]B[/dropcap]JP ally and Lok Janshakti Party MP Chirag Paswan also demanded a probe into a letter written by Dattatreya to the HRD ministry ahead of the Dalit research scholar’s suicide.
“The suicide should be probed by an independent agency, which should decide who it should be probing. Those found guilty must not be spared, no matter how influential they are,” he said.
The Congress called for Irani’s dismissal from the cabinet for misleading people about the suicide.
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said in New Delhi that the “anti-Dalit mindset of the BJP and the RSS” had manifested itself over the last 20 months in various forms across the country.
He said Dattatreya, “on whose letter the HRD ministry pressurised for the expulsion of the five PhD Dalit students”, should also be booted out of the cabinet.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]he BJP hit back, accusing the Congress of “giving a communal colour or caste angle” to every untoward incident in the country. “It is very unfortunate,” BJP national secretary Srikant Sharma said.
Sharma also demanded to know why Kejriwal, who visited Hyderabad, did not “meet even one family of dengue victims in Delhi”.
“They (AAP) are silent over law and order issues in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But they blame the centre for issues it is not even responsible. It proves their dishonesty,” he said.
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The Suicide should not be linked to the incidents. And University should not buckle under black mail. Many good students are becoming victims of the Left and caste ideology. It is a grand plan to break the Hindu society by alienating the SC/ST community from Hindu fold. Untouchability is still there in the villages but not in the Universities. Some people who are using the reservation facilities are misusing it and spoiling the atmosphere. If this continues then we are just making another block of well to do SC/STs and those who are still deprived. People like Owaisi want to break India again on religious lines by inciting the gullible Dalits.