Rohith was not a Dalit: probe panel set up by HRD

THE ONE-MAN judicial commission, set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to probe the circumstances leading to Rohith Vemula’s suicide at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in January this year, has said that the 26-yearold research scholar did not belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community.

Former Allahabad High Court judge A K Roopanwal, who was appointed by the then HRD Minister Smriti Irani, is learnt to have submitted his report to the University Grants Commission (UGC) in the first week of August, UGC sources said.

The report’s observation that Vemula wasn’t a Dalit is significant against the backdrop of the controversy fuelled by Union Ministers Sushma Swaraj and Thaawarchand Gehlot, who had questioned the student’s caste identity. Both Swaraj and Gehlot had said that Vemula belonged to the Vaddera community — a caste which falls under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category — and that his suicide was being projected as an issue of caste discrimination to fuel tempers.

The establishment of Vemula’s caste status is important because Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and HCU vice-chancellor Appa Rao were named in an FIR lodged by the police under the SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act for abetting his suicide.

Reached for comment, Roopanwal did not deny submitting the report, but said, “I cannot answer your questions. Please direct all your questions on the contents of the report to the government.”

New HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said, “You seem to be more knowledgeable than me on this issue. I was out of the city for the last five days and haven’t seen this report. Maybe it was submitted to the UGC. I will have

Rohith Vemula committed suicide on January 17