08, Feb 2016

The HRD Ministry wants a judicial commission to probe the events that led to the suicide on January 17 of Vemula.
Written by Apurva | New Delhi | Updated: February 8, 2016 9:36 am
The University of Hyderabad had all the warning it needed before Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula committed suicide last month. Three red flags, in the form of three suicides by Dalit students within six years. And three probes that arrived at the same conclusion: this was no campus for the marginalised.
The HRD Ministry wants a judicial commission to probe the events that led to the suicide on January 17 of Vemula, who was among five Dalits suspended by the university for allegedly assaulting an ABVP leader. But the findings of the three committees that probed the three suicides on campus between 2008 and 2014 were clear: the Dalit students faced a “sense of alienation” and “institutional discrimination” owing to “caste consideration”.
One of those committees, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice K Ramaswamy, stated in its report: “Because of the insensitivity towards problems faced by the students belonging to the aforesaid social groups, frequent occurrences of suicides are taking place.”
Senthil Kumar committed sucide in 2008 while P Raju and Madari Venkatesh killed themslves in 2013. The three suicides, like that of Rohith Vemula, happened inside the New Research Scholars (NRS) Hostel on campus.