Hyderabad: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday joined the mass hunger strike at the Hyderabad University campus to express solidarity with the students protesting against the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula who would have turned 27 today.
Here are the top developments so far.
1) Former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma also at the protest site in University of Hyderabad with Rahul Gandhi.
2) Gandhi along with the mother of Rohith Vemula offered floral tributes at a makeshift memorial.
3) Gandhi joined a protest march past midnight University campus by students demonstrating against the suicide of the Vemula. Gandhi spent the night in the campus.
4) Gandhi took a regular flight to reach Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad and arrived at the varsity at 12.45 a.m. by road.
5) The Hyderabad Central University (HCU) changed its interim vice-chancellor late Friday night, as Dr Vipin Srivastava went on leave just hours before Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi reached the university.
6) Interim VC Vipin Srivastava went on a leave for four days and in his absence, M Periasamy, the next senior-most professor, will take charge.
7) The student body of the BJP Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), has called a strike in Telangana colleges in protest against Gandhi’s campaign in Hyderabad University.
8) Rohith Vemula a Dalit scholar had hanged himself earlier this month, two weeks after he and four other students were suspended and banned from the hostel, the cafeteria and other common areas for allegedly beating an activist of a rival student union in August.(ANI)