Rohith’s kin spurns ex-gratia

Students protest PM’s bid to appropriate Rohith as Bharat Mata’s son.

Hyderabad : Agitating students of Hyderabad Central University on Saturday termed as “insulting” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks over suicide of dalit scholar Rohith Vemula even as the student’s distraught family rejected the Rs eight lakh ex-gratia relief offered by the institution.

The students vowed to step up their stir and said the PM’s “inaction” reflected his “political interests”.      The students also rejected an appeal by Minister of state for HRD Upendra Kushwaha, who urged them to withdraw their agitation and assured them justice, a day after the Centre decided to set up a judicial commission to look into the sequence of events leading to suicide of Rohith.

Giving a push to the agitation, Rohith’s family rejected the ex-gratia amount and also criticised the NDA government for “delay” in its response in condoling his death.

Rohit’s mother Radhika, sister Neelima and brother Raju, who visited the restive campus, demanded that “those responsible for his death” be brought to book. “Not Rs eight lakh, we don’t want even if you give Rs eight crore from HCU, where he died,” Neelima said.

Radhika said, “I want to know why he died. Those responsible should be punished…why he was suspended.” “Smriti Irani (Union HRD Minister)…she called up after five days. Why it took five days. You are also a woman…you are also a mother…it took five days (to call up the family and condole the death),” Neelima added. All the seven students, including a girl, who have been on a hunger strike on the issue, were today shifted from the hunger strike camp to the HCU’s health centre after their health condition deteriorated, even as the agitating students tried to prevent the officials from taking them away.

Voicing “dissatisfaction” over Modi’s remarks at a university in Lucknow on Friday, the JAC asked if the Prime Minister would now take action against his ministers.

The Prime Minister had said, “When there is news that a youth of my country, Rohith, was compelled to commit suicide, what his family must have gone through. Mother India has lost a son. There will be reasons, there will be politics (surrounding it) but the fact remains that a mother has lost her son. I feel the pain very well,” Modi had said.

Responding to Modi’s speech,  JAC said, “It is highly insulting to have received a condolence statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has referred to Rohith Vemula as Bharat Mata’s son. Joint Action Committee for Social Justice condemns in the strongest possible words, the appropriation of Rohith’s politics.”

“Rohith Vemula and the other socially boycotted stood always against the Hindutva and Manuvadi politics which the BJP ministers proudly stand for,” it said.