“We have had a complaint that the student was pushed to suicide by acts of a minister and some officials of the university, and an investigation is on,” local police official J Ramesh Kumar said.
Rohith Vemula, a 26-year-old doctoral student, hanged himself on the campus of Hyderabad Central University on Sunday, a couple of weeks after he was banned from university hostel facilities along with four other students.
The banned students were all members of the Dalit community.
The 1950 Constitution barred discrimination against Dalits, but it persists in some parts, especially remote areas.
The Hyderabad students were banned from the residence amid charges they attacked members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student’s wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during a campus protest in August.
Dalit activists say Vemula killed himself after federal Minister of State for Labour and local parliamentarian Bandaru Dattatreya urged the human resource development ministry to act against the Dalit students.
Dattatreya confirmed he contacted the ministry, but said it was to address reports that anti-social elements were disrupting the campus.
The university continued to simmer yesterday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi visited the campus to show solidarity with the protesting students and demanded action against Dattatreya and the vice chancellor.
Gandhi sought action against the minister, the vice chancellor and others allegedly responsible for Vemula’s suicide.
“Whoever is responsible for this outcome has to be punished in the strictest manner possible,” Gandhi said while addressing students at the place where the suspended student members of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) for Social Justice, an umbrella of 14 student unions, are on an indefinite strike.
“Certainly he has committed suicide but the conditions for his suicide have been created by the vice chancellor, the minister and the institution,” said the Congress leader while seeking the immediate resignation of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao.
Gandhi spent nearly two hours meeting four other suspended Dalit students and consoling Vemula’s mother.
He demanded compensation to the family. He also paid respects to Vemula at a memorial constructed by students.
Gandhi said the idea of a university is that young people from various parts of the country come here and express whatever is there in their heart.
“The idea of a university is knowledge. When somebody tries to impose on youngsters one idea and tell them only this idea is acceptable, they cause tremendous pain to their passion,” he added.
Earlier, ABVP activists tried to stop Gandhi’s convoy when he reached Begumpet airport. Police arrested the protesters.
Students from Osmania University and other institutions, leaders of various Dalit and left groups also reached University of Hyderabad to show solidarity with students staging the protest.
Raising slogans against HRD Minister Smriti Irani, Dattatreya, the vice chancellor and ABVP, hundreds of students marched to the building where the central committee began its hearing.
Leaders of the JAC, teachers’ association and suspended students separately met the committee, seeking justice.
The BJP meanwhile rejected the Congress’s demand for the minister’s resignation and appealed to Gandhi not to do vote-bank politics over the student’s death.
“Rahul Gandhi is a non-serious part-time politician. He has gone to Hyderabad for a photo opportunity. We appeal to him not to do vote-bank politics over a death,” BJP’s national secretary and media convener Srikant Sharma said.
“Demanding the resignation of Bandaru ji is baseless. There is no truth over the charges levelled against him,” he said.
Sharma said Dattatreya only forwarded the letter of a student member of the ABVP to the human resource development ministry.