Buckling under pressure from protests and the political backlash after the suicide of Rohith Vemula, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration on Thursday revoked the suspension of the four students who have been camping out in the open for the last 18 days.
The withdrawal of the punishment came on a day when Chief Medical Officer Captain Ravindra Kumar, Controller of Examinations Prof. V. Krishna, Chief Warden Dr. G. Nagaraju and a dozen other faculty members resigned from their administrative duties taking exception to Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani’s comments on the suicide of the 26-year old research scholar.
However, students and faculty members said the revocation of the suspension came too late. P. Vijay Kumar, one of the five suspended students, said the group’s main demand before Rohith’s suicide was this. “Now he is not with us. What we want now is that all those who were involved including Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya [Union Labour Minister] be punished,” he added.
V. Sukanna, who was one among the suspended research scholars, also felt the same, and said the university should have acted before Rohith took his own life.
“We are ready to sit here and spend our nights outside for another month, but we want those involved to be punished,” said Mr. Vijay Kumar.
On Thursday, classes remained suspended for the fourth day and the crowd at the Shopcom area where the protests were taking place continued to swell with students and professors throughout the day. The revocation failed to bring down the clamour for the resignation of Vice-Chancellor Prof. P. Appa Rao.
Prof. Prakash Babu, Dean of Students Welfare (DSW), rejected Ms. Irani’s statement that a Dalit professor had headed a sub-committee that looked into the scuffle between the Ambedkar Students Association members and Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad leader Susheel.
“In fact, the committee was headed by Prof. Vipin Srivastav, and other members on it were Prof. Durga Prasad, Prof. Anand Vazatral, and Prof. Geeta V. I was only a co-opted member. The Minister had stated that I, the DSW was the head of the sub-committee, which is factually incorrect,” clarified Prof. Babu.
