Dalit student's suicide: AAP demands Dattatreya's dismissal

The AAP on Thursday demanded the dismissal and arrest of union minister and BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya over Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in Hyderabad.

Aam Aadmi Party's national spokesperson Sanjay Singh said that Dattatreya wrote a letter to the university administration to get the protesting members of the Ambedkar Students' Association -- of which Vemula was a member -- suspended, by calling them "anti-national".

"We demand the immediate dismissal and arrest of the union minister Bandaru Dattatreya for motivating a Dalit student to commit suicide in Hyderabad," Singh said at a press conference here.

Vemula was found hanging from the ceiling of a room in the New Research Scholars' Hostel of the University of Hyderabad late on Sunday.

Vemula's suicide has sparked major protests in the university. He was suspended and his stipend blocked after he and his friends were accused of assaulting an ABVP student leader.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishadh (ABVP) is the student wing of the RSS and is allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).