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Rahul Gandhi slams Union Ministers over Rohith Vemula death

Rahul Gandhi slams Union Ministers over Rohith Vemula death

| | 19 Jan 2016, 03:20 pm
Hyderabad, Jan 19 (IBNS) Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday arrived at the Hyderabad University campus and attacked the VC and the Union Ministers in Delhi over the death of 26-year-old research scholar Rohith Vemula.

He  committed suicide at a Hyderabad university on Sunday.

"Met students of the Ambedkar Students Association, Hyderabad University. These students were protesting against the unjust expulsion and social boycott of Dalit students on campus," the Office of RG tweeted.

"The idea of a University is that young people can come and share their thoughts. Every student can come to the University- whether he belongs to any caste or religion. He should feel that I can say what I want to say. But when you impose ideas on youngsters, and want only those ideas, then tragedies take place," Gandhi tweeted.

"The VC and Union Ministers in Delhi have not acted fairly. This youngster was put in so much pain that he had no option but to kill himself," he said.

Massive student protests were held across the country on Tuesday over the death of Vemula.

Rohith's suicide has triggered a political storm with two central ministers, Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, facing allegations that their pressure led to action against the student.

Rohith and the four other students were suspended and asked to stay away from the hostel for allegedly beating an activist from the BJP's student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad in August, during a protest on campus against the execution of 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon.

The students had earlier been cleared by the university. But four months later in December, the university reversed its decision and took action against the students.

Protesters allege that the university's decision was linked to a letter that Bandaru Dattatreya, the BJP parliamentarian from Secunderabad, wrote to Education Minister Smriti Irani alleging that the university had become a "den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics".

After  Dattatreya's letter, four letters went to the university from Smriti Irani's Human Resource Development ministry, asking what action had been taken.

Bandaru Dattatreya has been named in a police complaint and has been accused of compelling the university to punish Rohith and his comrades. Students and activists have been protesting outside his home

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