Teachers of the Hyderabad Central University belonging to Scheduled Case (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) community have announced to sit on a hunger strike from Thursday, demanding the resignation of vice-chancellor (VC) Appa Rao and the in-charge VC Vipin Srivastava in the wake of suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula.
Intensifying their protest, students staged a demonstration outside Srivastava’s residence when he was holding a meeting with non-teaching staff. The protesters also marched outside the campus and burnt an effigy of the vice- chancellor.
Srivastava later visited the protest site to initiate a dialogue, but faced the ire of the students, who raised slogans asking him to “go back”. He was forced to beat a retreat in a few minutes as someone banged his car when it was about to move.
Students of most universities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana boycotted classes in solidarity with the agitators as they sought “justice” for Vemula. The SC and ST Teachers’ Forum, in a statement, said its members would go on a hunger strike from Thursday to press for the resignation of VC Appa Rao and the interim VC “in order to resume academic and administrative activities”.
Several members of the Forum have already given up their administrative responsibilities in solidarity with the students. “We have been criticised constantly that no one is making an effort. The truth is that the police have been stopping me (from venturing out). It is stopping us, Prof Rao (the VC who has gone on leave) as well as me. Because they felt it may result in a law and order situation,” said Srivastava. He, however, said he later convinced the police to let him go and talk to the students.
Meanwhile, six of the seven students of the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), on hunger strike to protest the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, have been shifted to a health centre even as the agitators today took out a march to the residence of the interim head of the institution.
The students, who had given a nationwide university strike call, marched to the residence of the interim head of the institution and then went outside the campus and burnt the effigy of the Vice-chancellor, whose ouster they have been seeking.
“Six (students) were shifted (to the health centre) yesterday”, Ravindra Kumar, chief medical officer said.