On Friday (3rd May), the Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) announced that they have decided to conduct further investigations into the January 2016 death of University of Hyderabad PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. The Telangana DGP’s announcement to further probe the matter came on the same day the Telangana Police submitted a closure report in this case. According to the closure report, the police have concluded that Vemula took his own life in 2016 out of fear that his true caste identity would be exposed, as he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. Additionally, it didn’t hold anyone responsible for his suicide.
On doubts raised by Vemula’s family, the Telangana DGP released a statement saying they have decided to investigate the case further.
The DGP’s statement stated, “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 Hon’ble Magistrate to permit further investigation into the case.”
Earlier, in a statement on Friday, DGP Ravi Gupta said the final report on the case was prepared in 2018 and that it was officially submitted to the jurisdictional court on 21st March 2024.
He added, “It is to state that the investigation officer in the case was Asst. Commissioner of Police, Madhapur, and the final closure report in the case was prepared last year i.e. before November 2023 itself, based on the investigation conducted.”
In the closure report, the police asserted that Rohith Vemula, the PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad who died by suicide, did not belong to the Scheduled Caste category. The police said Rohith Vemula died by suicide fearing that his real caste identity would be discovered.
With the closure report, the Telangana Police also gave a clean chit and exonerated former Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya, Legislative Council Member N Ramachander Rao, Vice Chancellor Appa Rao, ABVP leaders, and Union Minister Smriti Irani.
What did the closure report state
The closure report revealed, “There is no evidence of any fact or circumstance available on the record which dragged him to commit suicide and no one is responsible for his death.”
The report added that Rohith Vemula committed suicide because “he had his own problems and was not happy with worldly affairs. If he would have been angry with the decision of the University, certainly either he would have written in specific words or would have indicated in this regard. But he did not do the same. It shows that the circumstances prevailing in the university at the time were not the reason for Rohith’s death.”
According to the closure report, Rohith Vemula was “aware that he does not belong to the Scheduled Caste” and received the SC certificate from his mother. It added that this could have been one of Rohith Vemula’s continuous fears, as disclosing it could have ended in the loss of academic degrees and perhaps prosecution.
Furthermore, Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal (retired), who investigated the events at the University of Hyderabad that led to the suicide of student Rohith Vemula, stated in his report that “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 own…”
Notably, Vemula was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a hostel room on 17th January 2016. Back then, Congress and other political parties as well as their media allies used the case for their own gains and launched a smear campaign on the so-called upper caste Hindus, the BJP, and Prime Minister Modi over the death. His death was dishonestly turned into a political conflict between Dalits and Non-Dalits.
The assertion that he was a Dalit, which was later disputed and now confirmed by the police that he was not a member of the Scheduled Caste category, prompted opposition political parties and liberals to raise the caste discrimination bogey and build a narrative accusing the Modi government of oppressing lower caste groups of society. Even though his suicide note expressed his dissatisfaction with the Students Federation of India (SFI).
(With Inputs from ANI)
