Communist Party of India (Marxist) Telangana State Council has severely condemned the report by the district level committee and Guntur District Collector Kantilal Dande that the deceased scholar of University of Hyderabad Rohith Vemula was not a dalit.
Through a press release on Tuesday, the party termed it an effort by the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state governments to shield the accused from the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Rohith was brought up as a dalit in a dalit basthi and his mother belonged to ‘Mala’ caste, the press note asserted, and said that any effort to prove otherwise goes against not an individual, but the whole discourse of social justice.
Another release from Kula Vivaksha Porata Samithi too condemned the volte-face by the Collector and attributed it to political pressures. The District Collector should be dismissed for his self-contradictory reports and the show-cause notice issued to Rohith’s mother Radhika Vemula should be withdrawn immediately, the press note from the Samithi demanded.
The Students’ Federation of India too condemned the report and demanded action against the accused.
