Hyderabad: Students will converge at Veliwada on Tuesday to mark one year of the suicide of UoH Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. Rohith and his friends had fought alleged caste discrimations at the site.
Joining them would be the families of Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student who has gone missing, and Mohammed Akhlaq, who was killed for allegedly having beef at home, and a few of the Dalits who were thrashed in Una, Gujarat, for alleged cow slaughter.
Rohith’s friend Dontha Prashand said the suicide had galvanised Dalit forces, especailly students, to become united.
Rohith, Prashanth and three other PhD students were suspended by the UoH administration following allegations of assault on an ABVP activist, Susheel Kumar. Apparently following political intervention, the university cracked down on the group, barring them from the hostel and the mess. They set up the Veliwada near the canteen. Rohith committed suicide on January 17.
The suicide saw political leaders converging on the university and demanding the removal of Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile and action against Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya and a few others, amid a national outcry that figured in Parliament.
There is also a controversy over whether Rohith was a Dalit; it is learnt that the Guntur administration will declare him a BC.
