Hyderabad:
The crisis triggered by a Dalit student’s suicide deepened on Thursday after ten professors threatened to resign from their administrative posts, reports said.
The death of the Dalit scholar has taken a political turn with war of words between the BJP-led NDA government and the opposition.
According to reports, the professors, who belong to SC/ST communities have threatened to resig to show solidarity with students demanding justice for 26-year-old Rohith Vemula, who allegedly committed suicide at the hostel room of the university from where he was banned.
“We have taken a decision to lay down all our administrative position which some of our colleagues are holding...we are expecting some kind of decision from the authorities, if not done, we will be forced to do that,” Sudhakat Babu, a member of forum for Scheduled Caste faculty, said.
Reports said that the professors are angry over the “misrepresentation” of facts by Union minister for human resource development Smriti Irani.
The Irani-led HRD ministry has been at the centre of a controversy after it emerged that it had written five letters to the university following Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya’s complaint that the campus had turned into a “den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics”.
The University of Hyderabad SC/SC Teachers and Officers Forum rubbished Irani’s claim that a Dalit professor was among the members of the university’s body that suspended the students including Vemula.
“This is not a Dalit versus non-Dalit issue as being projected by some to ignite passion and there is a deliberate attempt to provoke students across the country,” Irani said in Delhi on Wednesday as she rejected allegations that her ministry had put pressure on the university to suspend Vemula.
