Telangana cops close Rohith Vemula’s death case, give clean chit to accused

Hyderabad: After more than eight years, the Telangana Police closed the death of Rohith Vemula. In their report, they claimed that Rohith was not a Dalit and died by suicide in the fear that his real caste might be revealed as he had forged documents to create fake caste certificates.

University students are on a protest against the closure of the case and the conclusions given by the police. It is pertinent to say that the Congress government when was in the Opposition at the time, supported the nationwide Justice for Vemula campaigns.

Accused included MP Bandaru Dattatreya, minister Smriti Irani

As per the fact-finding report submitted to the Telangana High Court, the state police claimed that Rohith was not a Dalit and that he died because he was afraid his ‘real caste identity’ would be discovered.

The closure report also gave a clean chit to the accused, absolving then Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya, MLC N Ramchander Rao and former University of Hyderabad vice-chancellor Appa Rao, besides Union minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani and leaders of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

Case details

On January 17, 2016, at around 7.20 pm, Gachibowli PS received information that a student Rohith Vemula from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) died by suicide by hanging himself in the NRS hostel room. The police found a handwritten suicide note which did not blame anyone and specifically stated that no one was responsible for his death.

When the Gachibowli police tried to shift the dead body to the hospital, the students agitated not to shift the body and began protests.

All the students at that moment alleged that the then vice-chancellor Prof Podile Appa Rao, then MP of Secunderabad Bandaru Dattatreya, Smriti Irani, N Ramchandra Rao, ABVP leaders Krishna Chaitanya, Nandanam Susheel Kumar and Nandanam Diwakar of BJP are responsible for the death of Rohith.

A large number of Dalit activists from Osmania University and other parts of the city arrived and started beating drums and singing songs in praise of Rohith. Someone from the students brought a dead body storage freezer, shifted Rohith’s body into it and requested all the police personnel to leave the room.

Complaint lodged

On January 18, a complaint was registered by Dontha Prashanth, a PhD student at Hyderabad University.

According to the students, On August 3, 2015, the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) conducted a protest gathering against the ABVP attack on Montage Film Society. At that time, one student who is the president of ABVP namely Nandanam Susheel Kumar, a PhD scholar in Applied Linguistics Translation Studies posted a message in social media insulting ASA. The student group condemned the comment and requested him to remove it and tender an unconditional apology.

The situation escalated later and led to a complaint by the ABVP leaders. Based on his complaint, the BJP party member entered the university and conducted a movement against them including Rohith, insisting the authorities take action against them. Nandanam Susheel Kumar’s mother Nandanam Vinaya also accompanied him.

Rohit Vemula and a few others were suspended from the university and were facing criminal cases following the incident.

Investigation into family documents

As per the case file, the examination of the father and grandparents of Rohith revealed that the marriage of Vemula Mani Kumar with Banala Radhika, daughter of Banala Musalaiah of Guntur, was an arranged one within the Vaddera caste organised by Vemula Mallais, father of grandfather of Vemula Rohith viz., Vemula Venkateshwarlu.

They stated that they are not aware as to why Vemula Radhika is claiming her caste as SC while she was a born Vaddera.

The police examined and recorded the statement of the sarpanch of Gurazala town Mahankali Seethamma who stated that the family of Vemula Venkateshwarlu is distantly related to her and she knows that all of them belong to the Vaddera community which she also belongs.

The conclusion report

“This report conclusively decided the caste of the deceased Vemula Rohith Chakravarthy and his family members as Vaddera falling under the BC-A category and it was found that they had obtained SC caste certificates fraudulently. In this case, there is no information of any appeal filed by anyone and as such, the caste clarification report issued by the district collector is final,” said the report.

The report stated that the reason for the suicide did not relate to any activities of the university administration or the above political leaders including the vice-chancellor, Prof Appa Rao Podile. It was wholly a decision of his (Rohith) own. His suicide note is on the record which shows that Rohith Vemula had his own problems and was not happy with his worldly affairs. He was feeling frustrated for reasons best known to him. He wrote that there was no urgency for understanding love, pain, life and death but he was rushing after them. It indicated that he was not happy with the activities going around him.”

“During the investigation, it is found that Rohith was involved more in student political issues on campus rather than in his studies. He discontinued his first PhD after pursuing it for two years and he joined another PhD which also did not progress much because of non-academic activities,” the report said.

In addition to this, Rohith himself is aware that he does not belong to Scheduled Caste and that his mother got him an SC certificate, the report said. “This could be one of the constant fears as the exposure to the same would cause him to lose the academic degrees he earned over the years and be compelled to face prosecution. Thus, the deceased had multiple issues worrying him which could have driven him to commit suicide. Despite best efforts, no evidence could be found to establish that the actions of the accused have driven the deceased to commit suicide,” said the report.

Congress supported the movement

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and many other leaders supported for justice to Rohit Vemula. “They say Rohit Vemula committed suicide. I call it murder. He was murdered by the indignities he suffered. He was killed because he was a Dalit. Hitler once wrote: Keep a firm grasp on reality, so you can strangle it at any time. This is what is happening today-strangulation of reality,” Rahul Gandhi posted in 2017.

Reacting on the case, TPCC senior vice president G Niranjan said, "It is shocking that the police informed the court that they were closing the Rohit Vemula suicide case.We appeal to the state government to order for a re enquiry of this case."