JD (U) demands Irani, Dattatreya's resignation over Dalit student's suicide

The Janata Dal (United) on Tuesday demanded resignations of Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani and Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya over the suicide of a Dalit scholar who was expelled from University of Hyderabad.

"Union Minister Smriti Irani, Bandaru Dattatreya and Vice-Chancellor Rao are part of the conspiracy which led to the suicide of a Dalit student. We want that both these ministers should resign and Vice-Chancellor should be arrested," JD (U) leader K.C. Tyagi told ANI.

Hyderabad police had on Monday registered a case against Union Dattatreya and three others under the Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes Act in connection with the suicide of Rohit Vemula, a research scholar of Hyderabad Central University.

The case was registered against Dattatreya following allegations that he wrote to the Union HRD Ministry seeking action against Rohit and four other research Scholars of the University for the alleged assault of an ABVP leader.

Irani yesterday flatly refused any intervention by the government in the Dalit scholar's suicide and said that a two-member team has been sent to the varsity from the ministry to take stock of the situation.

She asserted that she will not make any 'political' statement at the moment, since law and order was a subject of the state.