Students protest against Roopanwal panel report on Rohith Vemula

Accusing Justice Roopanwal panel, which went into Rohith Vemula’s suicide, of not performing the task in accordance with its terms of reference but those set by BJP and RSS, a group of students on Friday held a protest against the “atrocious” report submitted by it.

Scores of students of different organisations, who came together under the banner of ‘Justice For Rohit Vemula’, staged the protest at University of Hyderabad (UoH) this evening, alleging the report was a tool to save BJP’s Ministers in the Modi government--Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani-- and UoH Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile.

Raising slogans, the students took out a rally from the shopping complex on the campus to varsity’s main gate and burnt an effigy of Roopanwal.

“The Roopanwal Commission constituted by the MHRD came out with an atrocious report by discounting the discrimination and humiliation suffered by Rohit Vemula and his mother Radhika for being Dalits, and by concluding that they obtained SC certificate in order to avail the benefits of the Scheduled Caste category,” the students said.

Raising questions about Vemula’s Dalit status, the Commission constituted by the HRD Ministry after the Hyderabad university research scholar’s death, has said the material on record did not establish it and attributed his suicide to personal reasons.

The Commission, in its report to the HRD ministry, is learnt to have given a clean chit to Irani and Dattatreya.

“The Commission performed the task not in accordance with its terms of reference but in accordance with the terms set by BJP/RSS to save their ministers, Appa Rao and ABVP leaders and attacking/maligning Radhika Vemula, who has been fighting to seek justice for her son,” the protesters alleged.