On 22 March, Appa Rao Podile resumed charge as the Vice Chancellor of University of Hyderabad (HCU) after being forced to proceed on “long leave” in January for his role in the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. It is condemnable that Appa Rao Podile has been reinstated in spite of the fact that he is currently facing a judicial enquiry as well as serious charges under the Prevention of Atrocities Against SC/ST Act.
The reinstatement of Appa Rao Podile justifiably led to massive protests in HCU at the VC lodge in the campus. As has now become the pattern, the ABVP-RSS along with the University administration and the Police together launched a brutal and well-planned crackdown on the protestors. Hundreds of students and even teachers were brutally lathi charged, abused, dragged, and detained by the police. The police threatened the students with fake encounters, threatened women students with rape, and branded Muslim students as ‘terrorists’.
27 students and 2 faculty members were arrested and sent to jail. The campus was turned into a prison, hostel messes as well as the supply of drinking water, power supply and internet facilities were shut down for two whole days. Two students were cooking food in a community kitchen when the police suddenly swamped upon them and brutally beat up one student, Uday Bhanu, who was critically injured and had be hospitalised in ICU.
The CPIML extends all support and solidarity to the ongoing movement demanding dropping of all charges against students and faculty of HCU, immediate removal and arrest of HCU VC Appa Rao Podile and Union Minister Bandaru Dattatraya under Prevention Of Atrocities against SC/ST act, withdrawal of police from the campus, action against police for the targeted violence, detentions, misinformation about the detained people and physical assault of women students and faculty, enacting of the Rohith Act against caste discrimination on campuses and resignation of HRD Minister.
