The leaders of the Student Unions’ Joint Action Committee on Wednesday said the bandh by educational institutions called to bring pressure on the government in support of their demand for suspension and arrest of Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and University of Hyderabad (UoH) Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao, was total.
The student leaders enforced bandh at Siddhartha College of Arts and Science and raised slogans at the college entrance in support of their demands. They alleged that the two Ministers and the University Vice-Chancellor were responsible for the death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit students who committed suicide after he was expelled.
The leaders alleged that communal harmony had gone for a toss under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre and attacks on Dalits and minorities were on the rise. They said right-wing organisations such as Akhila Bharatiya Vidyardhi Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were a serious threat to the democracy and demanded a nation-wide ban on them.
Not happy with the one-man commission set up to go into the case details, the student leaders demanded that a sitting Judge be asked to probe the circumstances that led to Rohith’s suicide. They also demanded a government job for Rohith’s brother and grant of Rs. 50 lakh ex gratia for the bereaved family.
National Students’ Union of India State president P. Rajeev Ratan, Progressive Democratic Students’ Union president K. Ravichandra, Students Federation of India State secretary S. Noor Ahmed, YSR Students’ Union district president Anji Reddy and All-India Student Federation’s State secretary Viswanadh led the protest.
Guntur Staff Reporter adds: The ongoing agitation demanding justice in the case related to the suicide of Vemula Rohith, a Dalit research scholar in University of Hyderabad, intensified on Wednesday.
Responding a call given by various student unions with the exception of ABVP, schools and colleges remained closed on Wednesday voluntarily.
Leaders of SFI, NSUI, AISF and PDSO thanked the managements of various institutions for responding to a call and observing the bandh.
Earlier in the day, leaders of various political parties formed a human chain at Dr. Ambedkar Statue Centre expressing solidarity with the agitation.
Congress leaders Sk. Mastan Vali, former SC Cell president Y. Vijaya Kiran, leaders of Dalit Bahujan Front were present.
They demanded immediate action against the two Central Ministers named in the FIR, enactment of the Rohith Act and provision of a job to the younger brother of Rohith in the university campus.
