RPI leader Prakash Ambedkar has demanded that Unions ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, and Hyderabad Central University Vice Chancellor Appa Rao should be booked for the abetment of suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula.
"A central university is an autonomous body and the HRD Minister had no right to control it. By repeatedly writing letters to the Vice Chancellor to initiate action against five Dalit scholars, Irani had clearly exceeded her brief," he alleged.
"So all those involved in the action against the students which led to Vemula's suicide, should face charges of abetment to suicide," he demanded while talking to reporters here yesterday.
The Dalit leader also defended Vemula and the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) in the Hyderabad varsity for having protested against 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Menon's hanging.
"That Yakub was wrongly hanged can be a matter of a debate in a democracy. I personally feel that there was no need to hang him," the RPI leader said.
On the Pathankot airbase terror attack, he said the Narendra Modi government and his party were "not serious" about the handling of internal security or protecting the nation.
"The attack on IAF base was a grave security breach and it definitely involved lots of insiders and Indians. But even after so many days, the government has failed to unravel the whole episode," Ambedkar said.
