Kanhaiya Kumar and other students protested in Delhi demanding justice for Rohith Vemula
Nearly 300 students, protesting in Delhi to mark the first death anniversary of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, were detained on Tuesday when they blocked the crucial Janpath road in central Delhi, police said. Students from Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU, Delhi University, and the Jamia Millia Islamia, among others, were a part of the rally. Following a protest call from JNU Students' Union, about 1,000 students took out a rally from Mandi House. Last year, Mr Vemula committed suicide after facing discrimination on the basis of caste at University of Hyderabad.
Following a protest call from JNU Students' Union, about 1,000 students took out a rally from Mandi House. The group of students intended to go till Ministry of Human Resource Department (MHRD), only to be faced with elaborate barricading at Janpath.
The police stopped the students at a junction near Janpath Metro Station and ferried them in three buses to Parliament Street Police Station. Among those detained was JNU student's union's former President, Kanhaiya Kumar.
Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar at Hyderabad University, committed suicide on this day last year. In his suicide letter, he accused the university administration of persecution and discrimination on the basis of caste.
Earlier in 2016, his fellowship was stopped as a disciplinary action following a dispute between him and ABVP members over the screening of a documentary 'Muzaffarnagar Abhi Baaki Hai'.
He was a member of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) which held a screening of the documentary at the university campus. The ABVP members reportedly disrupted the screening and called it anti-Hindu.
The protesting students on Tuesday were demanding an enquiry into the suicide and termed it as an 'institutional murder'. They also demanded registering of cases against university Vice Chancellor P Appa Rao for neglecting his duty and doing nothing to defuse tensions.
Scores of students were also arrested in Hyderabad when, defying ban orders, they tried to enter the University of Hyderabad campus to pay tribute to Mr Vemula and take part in a meeting.