The Telangana Police have filed a closure report eight years after PhD student Rohith Vemula committed suicide at the University of Hyderabad owing to claimed caste-related prejudice. The report states that no one was responsible for Vemula’s death and that Vemula was not a Dalit. The closure report states that there is insufficient evidence to charge the former vice chancellor.
HYDERABAD: Eight years after Rohith Vemula, a graduate student at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide due to suspicions of caste discrimination, the Telangana police have issued a closure report saying that no one was responsible for his death and that Vemula was not even a Dalit. submitted a document. The final report cited a lack of evidence to convict the then VC and others of abetting Vemula’s suicide in a hostel room on January 17, 2016, and said that Vemula had fraudulently committed suicide at the SC. It has been hinted that he may have been afraid of being exposed for allegedly obtaining the certificate.
“The mother of the deceased and others have expressed doubts over the conduct of the investigation… A petition will be filed asking the judge to allow further investigation into the case,” the DGP said. Vemula’s family said they would legally challenge the report, calling it a farce “full of lies”. “After his suicide, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress supported our cause and promised to stand by us till justice prevails. But within four months of their party coming to power in Telangana The police closed the case.” This is very shocking. “We are all heartbroken by the outcome,” Vemula’s younger brother Raja told TOI from Vijayawada.
The report claims that the Guntur district administration came to know that Vemula and his family were from the OBC Vaddera community and canceled the SC certificates obtained by them. A case of abetment to suicide under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and other charges was registered against former VC Apparao Podhir, then Union Minister and Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya, BJP and university president N. Ramchander Rao along with students Krishna Chaitanya, Nandanama Susheel Kumar and Nandanam Diwakar. They were accused of harassing Vemula on the grounds of her caste and pushing her to suicide. The closure report refers to a letter written by Dattatreya to the office of then Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, citing a complaint by the ABVP about unrest on the campus.
It also quotes a statement made by Rao to former VC Podhir on the issue: “The action taken by the university authorities (against Vemula and her friends) is not the fault of Bandaru Dattatreya and Ramchander Rao.” “None of the board members or executive committee reported knowledge of any such communications with VCs, and they acted independently,” the report states. The report said that if he is prosecuted for obtaining the SC certificate fraudulently, Vemula will lose the degrees he has earned over the years.
It also said there was no evidence of harassment by the former venture capitalist, who suspended Vemula and four other students from the hostel. Investigators said Mr. Podil took a more lenient approach, reducing his original expulsion by one semester, room and board fees, and scholarship money. “Given this generous treatment, it cannot be said that the VC discriminated against Mr. Rohith Vemula and his friends,” the report said. According to the newspaper, in December 2015, Vemula wrote a letter to the deputy prime minister asking for poison and suicide rope.
“If this could be interpreted as suggesting suicide, it was written a month before (the elimination) and could have been out of disappointment and anger, and over time (the “Sentiments may have faded,” the report said, and he was more involved in campus politics than academics.
