HYDERABAD: A year since Rohith Vemula committed suicide to draw attention to caste discrimination at the University of Hyderabad, the vice-chancellor’s guest house on the campus is a mansion under siege. The compound wall is topped with concertina coils, a battery of CCTV cameras watch every leaf that falls, and visitors are a frisked 50 feet away from the gates. Even the back of the premises is barricaded.
For the better part of the year since Rohith Vemula hanged himself, Podile Appa Rao was kept from the people by a platoon of policemen. That was the result of the riot of March 23, 2016 when students scaled the compound wall, smashed glass panes of the house and trashed TVs and any electronic device that came to hand.
But as the intensity of the Dalit agitation waned in the latter months of 2016, the guards were progressively withdrawn, leaving only a gunman to stand guard.
But a year on, it still is a vice-regal castle cowering from ghosts.
A small distance from the VC's residence, students are stopped at barricades on the path to the campus hangout called Buffalo Lake. Here ID cards have to be deposited and collected on the way back.
Since the need for security is felt round the clock, temporary sheds have been erected at the main and back entrances of the residence so that security personnel are protected from the rain and the sun.