Activists were caned, hit on the head, dragged by their hair and slammed to the ground during a rally in support of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula on Saturday. Their attackers were policemen with canes and unknown men who suddenly emerged during a rally outside the office of the RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological mentor of the BJP.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has released a two-day-old video footage showing men in police uniform, and even in civil dresses, beating up ruthlessly some students. On January 30th, students from All India Students’ Association (AISA) gathered outside the RSS office in New Delhi to protest the death of Rohith Vemula. AISA is a Left-wing student organization of India.
To disperse the students, police used force on all students irrespective of their sex. The video has gones gone viral on social media platforms.
It is pertinent to mention that Rohith (who committed suicide on 17 January) was an Indian Ph.D. student at the Hyderabad Central University. According to the suicide note, he committed suicide in the room of one Umma Anna, in whose room he was staying after being expelled from the hostel by the authorities at the Hyderabad Central University.
His death occurred after a controversy which extended over several months starting in July 2015, when the University reportedly stopped paying him the fellowship of 25,000 rupees per month and expelled him from the hostel along with five other members of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA).
“We were stopped at the barricade and policemen asked us to use another road. Suddenly a group of men appeared out of nowhere and started thrashing us mercilessly,” a protester said.
In the video, a man is seen attacking a protester who was being held and beaten by two policemen. Instead of stopping the man, the policemen turn away.
Reacting to the development, Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) Chief Swati Maliwal has said that they would issue a notice to the Delhi Police. They have questioned why there were no female police personnel involved in the action, even as there were women protestors.
Delhi Police DCP claimed that the protestors had broken barricades, and threw sticks, charging at the cops. DCP Central Paramditya said, “It was protesters who provoked first. They threw banners and sticks at us. They broke the first barricade. Then they charged towards the second layer of barricade where max force was deployed.”
Meanwhile, the incident appears to have snowballed into a major political issue with most of the parties demanding a judicial probe into the incident.
