Ex gratia fails to deter students

The University of Hyderabad (UoH) announced an ex gratia of Rs 8 lakh to the bereaved family of Rohith Vemula, but students remained firm on their decision on continuing with their protest.

“We are happy to note that the PM has called Rohith as son of the soil. It means that he is not an extremist as mentioned by the Labour Minister Dattatreya in his letter. So the PM should now sack Dattatreya from his Cabinet for labeling Rohith as an anti-national,” said Prashant, one of the five Dalit students who were suspended.  He said that the struggle will continue till all the demands of the Joint Action Committee for Social justice were met by the government.

Hunger strike

The indefinite hunger strike by the students entered the third day on Friday at the Dalit Ghetto. A team of campus doctors have checked the vital parameters of the students and said that blood pressure of some of them has come down.

Students have raised slogans against a section of the university teaching staff that tried to convince them for a dialogue with the controversial vice-chancellor (V-C) Prof Appa Rao.

Students had demanded “unconditional revocation of suspension of the four Dalit research scholars” as a pre condition for any dialogue.

The teaching and non-teaching staff of the campus that have met and sought to reopen class work also failed to reach a conclusion as many of the Dalit professors felt that the some of the “upper-caste” teaching staff are taking sides with the V-C who is in trouble.
Rohith’s mother, too, refused to meet the vice-chancellor.