Hyderabad/New Delhi : Fresh protests by students broke out on Wednesday in Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai over the alleged ‘delay in justice’ to the Hyderabad university Dalit scholar who committed suicide, as they remained unrelenting in the demand for resignations of Union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya.
Lending further support to the stir over Rohith Vemula’s suicide, SC and ST teachers of the Hyderabad Central University(HCU) announced a hunger strike from today seeking resignation of Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao, who has gone on leave, and interim VC Vipin Srivastava for resumption of academic and administrative work. Several members of the Forum have already given up their administrative responsibilities.
Stepping up their campaign, the university students in Hyderabad held a demonstration outside the residence of Srivastava when he was in a meeting with non-teaching staff. They then marched outside the campus and burnt effigy of the Vice-Chancellor whose ouster they have sought. Srivastava later visited the protest site to initiate a dialogue but faced the ire of the students who raised slogans against him, asking him to “go back”.
Students in most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana boycotted classes in solidarity with agitators seeking ‘justice’ for Rohith who was found hanging in a hostel room on January 17. The HCU students had given a nationwide university strike call today in support for their stir. Six of the seven students of the HCU on hunger strike protesting the suicide of Rohith, meanwhile, have been shifted to the health centre.
In Delhi, scores of students from varsities across the capital once again marched to the Human Resources Development Ministry where 60 of them were detained by Delhi police.
According to police, due to security concerns, around 60 students were detained from outside Shastri Bhawan and taken to Parliament Street police station. “Every time we try to go to the Ministry and raise our demands with HRD Minister Smriti Irani, we are held back and detained by police. Protesting is a basic right. We can’t be denied that at a time when the government is trying to cover up ‘institutional murder’,” JNU Students Union vice president Shehla Rashid Shora said.