Dalit Student’s Suicide Triggers Tension On UoH Campus

18 January, Hyderabad

Tension continued to prevail on the campus at the University of Hyderabad here today following the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit Research Scholar.

Agitating students prevented police from taking out the body of Rohith from the room of the ‘New Research Scholars’ hostel, where he hanged himself last evening.The students threw stones in an ambulance van parked near the hostel building.

At one stage, police swung into action to disperse the agitating students.

Rohith,a native of Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, was expelled along with four other research scholars a fortnight ago, and ever since their expulsion, the students of the Ambedkar Students’ Association had been on a sleep-in strike in the open campus.Rohith, in a five-page suicide note said that he was depressed with his life and also mentioned how he always “looked at the stars and dreamt of being a writer”.