Rohith Vemula suicide case: Telangana Police give clean chit to VC Rao, BJP leaders

More than seven years after Rohith Vemula died by suicide in January 2016 sparking protests across the nation, Telangana Police on Friday (May 3) in its closure report gave a clean chit to Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, then Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya, BJP MLC N Ramachander Rao and Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leaders.

In its closure report, the state police rather accused the PhD scholar at the Hyderabad Central University of not performing well in his studies owing to his on-campus political activities which led to stress. “If the studies of the deceased were seen, it appeared that he was involved more in student political issues on the campus rather than in his studies. He discontinued his first Ph.D after pursuing it for 2 years and he joined another Ph.D which also did not progress much because of non-academic activities,” the police claimed in its closure report.

Accusing his mother

The police further accused his mother Radhika Vemula of procuring a fake Scheduled Caste certificate which again led to stress for her son.

“In addition to this, the deceased himself is aware that he does not belong to Scheduled Caste and that his mother got him SC certificate. This could be one of the constant fears as the exposure the same would put him to loss of his academic degrees that he earned over the years and be compelled to face prosecution,” the police alleged.

Stressing that there were many issues like these which overwhelmed him to take his life, the police said while absolving all the accused including Smriti Irani, Bandaru Dattatreya, Ramachander Rao, Appa Rao and ABVP leaders. “Despite best efforts, no evidence could be found to establish that the actions of the accused have driven the deceased to commit suicide,” the police said further in the report.

Will challenge police report

“It is absolutely wrong, a police officer cannot decide on a person's caste. We are going to meet Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy tomorrow. We will file a protest petition and other options will also be taken up,” Rohith’s brother Raja was quoted as saying in media reports.

The research scholar who wanted to follow in the footsteps of noted scientist Karl Sagan committed suicide on January 17, 2016 after allegedly facing harassment at the hands of the university administration at the behest of various BJP leaders named as accused in the case. He was a member of the Ambedkar Students' Association which raised various issues on the campus for which the university stopped his monthly fellowship. He left a suicide note which went viral on social media.