Sack vice chancellor, Irani must apologize: Kejriwal

Meanwhile, ten professors belonging to SC/ST community on Thursday resigned from their administrative posts in the University of Hyderabad (UoH), in response to the “fabridcated statements” by Union HRD Minister Irani over Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide.

Addressing a gathering of students at the campus, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader also asked Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani to apologize for “playing caste politics” over Rohith Vemula’s suicide.

“Smriti Irani ji spoke one lie after another and tried to create controversy over Rohith’s caste”, he said after interacting with student protesters at the university campus.

“The union ministers might say they were not interfering with the autonomy of the central university but I demand that the call records of Irani must be verified to ascertain details of the conversation between her and the Vice chancellor Appa Rao regarding action on the boys”, he said.

To this the forum said the warden enjoys no power to expel any student and he merely implemented an order given by his superior.

Alleging that Rohith Vemula was subjected to “grave crime and grave insensitivity”, Paswan attacked Dattatreya for calling him “anti-national” in his letter to the HRD Ministry and added that Irani too was responsible for “mishandling” the affair. They were barred from entering the hostel, library, mess and other common areas within the university premises.

He said Dattatreya, “on whose letter the HRD ministry pressurised for the expulsion of the five PhD Dalit students”, should also be booted out of the cabinet.

In New Delhi, the AAP demanded the arrest of Dattatreya, the BJP MP from Secunderabad. “The matter has become so serious that there should be a CBI inquiry”, he said. “That it is instead raising questions over his caste is a shame both for the nation and the society”, he said.

Rejecting Opposition allegations against the Centre and Dattatraya, who has been booked in the suicide case, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said the Central government as well as the two ministers concerned have nothing to do with the alleged suicide.

Sharma also demanded to know why Kejriwal, who visited Hyderabad, did not “meet even one family of dengue victims in Delhi”.

“The suicide should be probed by an independent agency, which should decide who it should be probing”.