HCU orders removal of temporary structures from campus

The Joint Action Committee for Social Justice which is heading the agitation over suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula today protested against an order by Hyderbad University to remove the structures put up by protesting students in the campus. "The University has put out an order by Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile stating that the students are 'advised' to remove the 'unauthorised' tents and structures from the shopping complex (on the campus) within 48 hours. "This order by the VC is basically a threat to the students to remove Velivada and Rohit stupa that are the reminders of the murder committed by this University," JAC said in a release. The Joint Action Committee, therefore, organised a gathering where copies of the order were burnt, it said. Following their suspension last year, Rohith and four other students had put up a small makeshift shed which they named `Velivada' (Dalit ghetto) near the shopping area of the University and from where they staged their protest. After Rohith's suicide on January 17, students set up tents there alongwith a 'Rohith Smaraka Stupa'. The JAC today also alleged that the students were being evicted from hostels without any justification, and the graffiti and posters put up by them were being removed in the name of maintenance and renovation. Even those students who needed to stay at the hostel for preparations for UPSC and other competitive exams were being forcibly evicted, and SC/St students were being targeted in this, JAC alleged. "They want to erase from the minds of the students and from the University any memory of Rohith, his ideas and this struggle for justice," the release added.