Hyderabad: Students of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) on Wednesday held a campuswide bandh over two deaths, by suicide and of a heart attack, of non-teaching staff due to alleged harassment and discrimination by their superiors on the campus.
Following the deaths, which took place within four days of each other, students have been holding protests near the campus gate, holding placards, raising slogans of “We want justice” and “Inquilab Zindabad” and displaying posters and banners that read ‘Institution of Murder’.
Protesters said that Praveen, the sanitation department worker who died, was a diligent worker and faced constant harassment from his section officer, which included casteist slurs, denial of rights, misappropriation of funds and inadequate protective gear. They alleged collusion between the section officer and deputy registrar of sanitation.
They also accused the HoD of the Hindi department of using abusive language while addressing the other deceased, office assistant Vinod Kumar, with casteist and communal discrimination also commonplace. They said that the hostile environment led to negligence during critical moments when Kumar’s health deteriorated and subsequently, led to his death.
The student union demanded a thorough, independent inquiry into both deaths, with a focus on caste discrimination faced by contractual workers. They called for the removal of accused individuals from their positions, the provision of fair compensation to their families and permanent job allocation from the university.
Students emphasised the need for timely salary payments, increased staff recruitment to alleviate work burden, and the regularisation of contractual workers.
