Hyderabad Student Suicide: Bandaru Dattatreya's Letter Alleged Scholars 'Anti-National'

Hyderabad: Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya asserted today that a letter written by him had nothing to do with the suicide of a research student at the Hyderabad Central University, which has led to anger and protests.

Mr Dattatreya, the Labour Minister, faces charges of aiding the suicide of 26-year-old Rohith Vemula, who was found hanging in a hostel room on Sunday evening. In a suicide note, Rohith said, "No one is responsible for my act of killing myself."

Students allege that Rohith had been banned from the hostel and other common areas on campus after Mr Dattatreya's letter to Education Minister Smriti Irani.

"Some anti-social elements were disrupting peaceful atmosphere within the university, I wrote to the ministry seeking action against that," Mr Dattatreya, 68, told reporters.

"This suicide does not have any link with BJP. The inquiry report will bring out the truth," he said.

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Rohith and four other research scholars like him had slept in a tent outside the campus after they were thrown out of the hostel on December 21.

They were accused of assaulting a member of the BJP-linked union, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad or ABVP in August, allegedly during a protest against the execution of 1993 Bombay blasts convict Yakub Memon.

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The five, all members of the Ambedkar union, had been cleared in an initial inquiry, but the university reversed its decision in December.

Students have blamed the action on Bandaru Dattatreya who had written to Education Minister Smriti Irani in August alleging that the university had become a "den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics."

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To support his allegation of "anti-national politics", he had written: "This could be visualized from the fact that when Yakub Memon was hanged, a dominant students union, that is Ambedkar Students Union had held protests against the execution. When Shushil Kumar, president, ABVP, protested against this, he was manhandled and as a result he was admitted in hospital. What is more tragic is that the university administration has become a mute spectator to such events."