News / India

Indian students protest caste-related death of young Dalit scholar

Monday, 18 January 2016 6:32 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 18 January 2016 6:33 PM ]

New Delhi Police detain a girl student during a protest rally outside a government building on January 18, 2016.

Indian police have attacked hundreds of students protesting the death of a young scholar from the Dalit community, formerly known as untouchables, who allegedly committed suicide after he was suspended from a university.

Riot police fired water cannon to disperse angry demonstrators who had gathered outside the Ministry of Human Resource Development building in the capital New Delhi on Monday.

This comes a day after Rohit Vemula, a 26-year-old doctoral student was found hanged in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. His death has triggered protests in New Delhi, Hyderabad and some other major cities across India over the past hours.

Vemula along with his four comrades, all from India’s lowest Dalit social caste, were suspended by Hyderabad Central University (HCU) after allegedly getting involved in a tiff between two student groups in August last year.

The police have registered preliminary cases against Bandaru Dattatreya, a junior federal minister who had called for the university to punish the five.

Dattatreya and the university’s vice-chancellor Appa Rao face charges under a prevention of atrocities act that is designed to protect low-caste Hindus who are said to have faced historic abuse and discrimination.

Students at the Monday rally outside the government building, where the minister works, blamed the administration for pushing the student for taking such a step.

“This is not a suicide but a murder. There was too much pressure from the administration on the five students,” AFP quoted Ravneet Param, a graduate student in New Delhi, adding, “They were framed and the people who were behind the fabricated case should face action.”

The developments come as Dalits frequently fall victim to acts of violence and prejudice across the region.

Indian police wielding batons charge at members of Dalits and for other so-called “backward castes” as they rallied for preferred treatment in the state of Bihar, on September 4, 2015. ©AFP

In an arson attack on the outskirts of New Delhi , a nine-month-old boy and his toddler sister belonging to Dalit community were burnt alive in October last year. The attackers set fire to the house with petrol in Faridabad, located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside the capital.

The low-caste status of Dalits means that investigations into attacks on the community are often treated as a low-priority case by police.

Caste-related violence has claimed several lives across India in recent years. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, indigenous peoples and Dalits continue to face discrimination, exclusion, and acts of communal violence.

There are approximately 180 million Dalits in India’s 1.25 billion population.

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