University of Hyderabad’s Joint Action Committee for Social Justice (UoH JAC) has condemned “flagrant manipulation” of facts and “blatant lies” that Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani uttered in the Parliament.
The UoH JAC has called her speech in the Parliament a “performance filled with melodrama and sensationalism”, and remarked that she “did not leave any stone unturned in vilifying and denigrating our struggle for #JusticeforRohith”.
While expressing their shock and outrage at fabrication of statements about Rohith’s death by Irani, the UoH JAC also alleged that the University administration fabricated the entire case and failed to follow the institutional procedures.
“We want to reiterate our demands #JusticeforRohith and his family, we demand punishment of all the culprits of Rohith’s murder, we demand the sacking of the MHRD minister Smriti Irani and we demand a strong legislation in the form of Rohith act to prevent any such incidences in future and ensure a safe environment for pursuing education to people from marginalised sections,” the UoH JAC said in a statement.
Demands by the UoH JAC in Rohith Vemula Case:
- Enact “Rohith Act” against the caste discrimination in education spaces.
- Punish the culprits (Smriti Irani, Bandaru Dattatrya, Appa Rao, Ramchandra Rao, Alok Pandey and Susheel Kumar).
- Remove Appa Rao from post of Vice Chancellor.
- Employ a family member of Rohith in the university.
- Pay a minimum compensation of 50 lakhs.
- Drop the false police cases against the five research scholars.
- Appoint a special public prosecutor in the concerned case of Rohith.
- Constitute a judicial inquiry (non-MHRD members) into all cases of discrimination and harassment of Dalit, Adivasi, OBC, Religious Minority students in all higher educational institutions.
- Implement Affirmative action policies in all higher education institutions, irrespective of the management of the colleges.