Rohith Vemula’s case will be further investigated: Telangana DGP

Hyderabad: Hours after the Telangana Police closed the case on Rohith Vemula’s death, the office of Telangana DGP in a statement said the State would go for a re-investigation into the case. This decision comes followed by doubts expressed by Rohith’s mother Radhika Vemula.

The investigation officer in the case was the assistant commissioner of police, Madhapur, and the final closure report in the case was prepared last year i.e. before November 2023 based on the investigation conducted.

The final closure report was officially filed in the jurisdictional court on March 21, 2024, by the Investigation Officer.

The family of University of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula on Friday said it will legally contest the Telangana Police's closure report in his 2016 suicide case. His brother Raja Vemula claimed the district collector has to decide on the family's SC status, prompting the police to say that they will conduct a further investigation.

“As some doubts have been expressed by the mother and others of the deceased Rohit Vemula on the investigation conducted, it has been decided to conduct further investigation into the case. A petition will be filed in the court concerned requesting the magistrate to permit further investigation into the case,” said the DGP Ravi Gupta.

The Telangana Police in their closing report 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.

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).

Raja Vemula told news channels that Telangana High Court gave an option to file a 'protest petition' in the lower court.

Whether Rohith Vemula belonged to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community or not should come from the district collector of Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, he said and asked how the police can say he was not an SC.

Raja Vemula also said that they plan to meet Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on the matter.