Rohith Vemula not Dalit: Telangana Police in closure report to court

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 3

Eight years after Rohith Vemula, a student of the University of Hyderabad, died by suicide, triggering a massive political row, the Telangana Police in a closure report to the state high court said he was not a Dalit.

The report has also given a clean chit to all accused in the matter, including then Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya, who is currently the Haryana Governor. After the January 2016 suicide of Vemula, the Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, had mounted a massive campaign against the ruling BJP alleging that Vemula suffered insults and died because he was a Dalit. The Congress had attacked then HRD Minister Smriti Irani also.

Suicide case

• Rohith Vemula, a student of the University of Hyderabad, had died by suicide in 2016
• The Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, had mounted a massive campaign against the ruling BJP, alleging that Vemula suffered insults and died because he was a Dalit

The Telangana Police have now said in its closure report that Vemula was not a Dalit and was under constant fear of his identity being revealed.

“The deceased was aware that he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste and that his mother got him an SC certificate. This could be one of his constant fears and its exposure would put him to loss of his academic degrees that he earned over the years and he would be compelled to face prosecution,” the cops said in the closure report, noting that Vemula’s caste certificate was forged. Vemula’s brother denounced the police report as “absurd” and said the family would meet Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for justice. The BJP hit back after cops of Congress-ruled Telangana filed the closure report in the highly controversial case.

BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posted on X, “Rahul Gandhi’s irresponsible campaign vitiated the environment in higher learning educational institutes across India and put Rohith Vemula’s family through immeasurable pain and misery. But he had no compunction raising the spectre of caste oppression to suit his sinister agenda, using thousands of students, particularly from the Dalit community, as cannon fodder for his regressive politics. He should apologise to both the student and Dalit communities.”

Malviya was reacting to a July 21, 2017, tweet by Rahul that read: “They say Rohith Vemula committed suicide. I call it murder. He was murdered by the indignities he suffered. He was killed because he was a Dalit.”

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