HYDERABAD: Rohith Vemula, the UoH student who committed suicide on the university campus on Sunday, was known for his active participation in student politics. However, post the disciplinary action initiated against him by the varsity administration, he had grown extraordinarily silent.
While students held the administration responsible, Rohith, in his suicide note, wrote: “No one is responsible for my suicide..no one instigated me.” While pointing out that he aspired to become a writer, Rohit lamented that the suicide note would be his first and last piece of writing.
“People may dub me as a coward. And selfish or stupid one..I am not bothered..If you can do anything, I am to get my seven months fellowship. One lakh seventy five thousand. Please see to it my family is paid that,” Rohith wrote in the suicide note not forgetting to mention that he owes `40,000 to a friend.
Recalling the last few days of Rohith’s life, C Seshaiah, another research scholar against whom the varsity had issued disciplinary action, told Express: “Lately, he had been very disappointed with something. He used to just sit at the protest camp and leave whenever he felt like. Today too, as we had plans to intensify the protest, we could not spot him.” According to Seshaiah, the students thought that Rohith was sitting in the hostel room preparing for his upcoming doctoral committee meeting where he had to present the progress in his research.
“We are eagerly awaiting a verdict on the petition filed at High Court and this has come as most unexpected,” Seshaiah said.
Student organisations on campus have called for a campus bandh on Monday. They demanded removal of vice-chancellor and chief warden from their posts. Holding Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya and HRD minister Smriti Irani responsible for the suicide, the student leaders demanded a case of SC/ST atrocities be registered against the vice-chancellor.
It may be noted that in the past too Puyala Raju, a student of integrated MA Linguistics and Madari Venkatesh, a PhD scholar from Advanced Centre for Research in High Energy Materials (ACRHEM) have committed suicide in 2013. Earlier in 2009, a PhD Telugu scholar P Senthil Kumar and Ravula Balaraju, a PhD Physics scholar had ended their lives on the campus.