Modi shedding crocodile tears over Vermula's death: Congress

Condemning the BJP's "insensitivity" over the death of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, the Congress on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shedding crocodile tears over the issue.

"External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has raised doubt about Rohith Vemula being a Dalit student. This is condemnable. This also makes it clear that whatever the prime minister said (about Vermula's death) during a programme in Lucknow recently was fake and he shed crocodile's tears over it," Congress leader Anand Sharma told media persons here.

Modi, in a speech at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow on Friday, said he was deeply saddened by Vemula's suicide.

The prime minister also choked while referring to Vemula's January 17 death in Hyderabad University after being suspended for allegedly assaulting an ABVP leader.

"I am not going into the reasons, the politics of the issue. But I empathise with the family which has lost so much," Modi had said with tears in his eyes.

Anand Sharma said accountability over the issue should have been fixed and people responsible punished.

"The prime minister did not carry out his moral and constitutional duties in this case," he alleged.

Sharma said Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, Labour and Employment Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and University of Hyderabad Vice Chancellor P. Appa Rao were being given shelter by the prime minister.

He said Vemula, who struggled for his rights when alive, was being humiliated even after his death.