Dalit scholar suicide: Youth Congress protests outside WB Rajbhawan

Kolkata : Youth Congress workers staged a protest outside Rajbhawan here on Wednesday over the suicide of a Dalit student in the University of Hyderabad.

The agitators waved Youth Congress flags and raised slogans condemning the incident.

Heavy police presence was seen outside the Governor’s residence to prevent the protestors from entering Rajbhawan. The police also had to detain several protestors to prevent any untoward incident from occurring.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier alleged that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was trying to score political brownie points out of the tragic incident in the University of Hyderabad.

The Congress vice-president, who visited the University of Hyderabad yesterday, had said that the varsity Vice Chancellor Appa Rao and Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya created the situation that made Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar studying there, kill himself.

Rohith Vemula, who belonged to Guntur district of Amravati, was found hanging in his hostel room on Sunday. He was doing his PhD in science technology and society studies for the past two years.

The protests escalated yesterday over Rohith’s suicide with activists demonstrating outside the residence of Dattatreya, who has been accused of abetment of the Dalit scholar’s suicide and demanded his resignation. (ANI)