AMN/
HYDERABAD: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today blamed university VC and a union minister created the situation that made Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar studying there, to commit sucide.
“I agree with the students here. Rohith committed suicide but the conditions for his suicide were created by the VC and the minister,” said Rahul Gandhi who visited Hyderbad today to condole the death of Dalit student.Rohith, a PhD scholar who was found hanging in his hostel room on Sunday.
Rahul also spoke about how students should be able to express themselves freely in a university atmosphere. “The idea of a university is knowledge. When you try and impose only one certain kind of idea on all students, you harm the passion that various students possess,” the Congress vice-president said.
Upholding the demand of agitating students, Rahul Gandhi insisted that the family of Rohith Vemula be “compensated” while the “people responsible for Rohith’s death be subjected to strict punishment”.
Gandhi said that he didn’t come to Hyderabad as a politician but as a young person. “I want to make sure that everyone can proudly speak his mind,” he said. “My door is always open for Rohith’s family and all other students protesting here, I shall help you in every way possible,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Meanwhile, protests escalated on Tuesday over the alleged suicide by a dalit research scholar with activists demonstrating outside the residence of Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who has been accused of abetment of Rohith’s suicide, demanding his immediate resignation.
The activists of the Telengana Jagruti Youth Front, a cultural outfit headed by TRS MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha, raised slogans outside the house of Dattatreya in Ram Nagar here and blamed him for the death of the PhD scholar who was found hanging in his hostel room on Sunday, triggering angry reactions.