Telangana Police to Reopen Probe into Rohith Vemula’s Death
The Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) has announced that the state police will conduct a further investigation into the 2016 death of University of Hyderabad PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. This decision comes after the police filed a closure report in their initial investigation, which claimed that Vemula was not a Dalit and died by suicide due to the fear of revealing his “real caste.”
The DGP stated that the reopening of the investigation is due to doubts expressed by Vemula’s family members. The police will file a petition in court requesting permission for the further investigation.
Vemula’s brother, Vemula Raja, expressed his belief that the Congress government will conduct a fair and transparent investigation.
Vemula was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a hostel room on January 17, 2016. He was allegedly upset over disciplinary actions taken against him by the university.
Former BJP MLC N Ramchander Rao, an accused in the case, has alleged that Congress and Left parties have tried to gain political mileage by linking Vemula’s death to the saffron party.
Students at the University of Hyderabad have protested the closure report, raising slogans against the BJP, Union Minister Smriti Irani, and former university vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile. The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) criticized the closure report as an “exercise in irony,” arguing that the Congress government supports the BJP’s false narrative by denying Vemula’s Dalit identity despite a lack of evidence.
