An inquiry panel set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development has said that University of Hyderabad scholar Rohith Vemula had not committed suicide because he had been expelled along with four other students. Instead, the report concluded that Vemula ended his life because he “had his own problems”.
“The suicide did not relate to any activities of the university administration or the above political leaders [Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and former HRD Minister Smriti Irani], including Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile,” the Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal report says. “It was wholly a decision of his own.”
The report further claims that being expelled from the hostel could not have led Vemula to commit suicide as the order had been challenged at the Hyderabad High Court. It also mentions Vemula’s suicide note, claiming that it shows he was unhappy with “worldly affairs” and the “activities going on around him”, and that he was frustrated for reasons “best known to him”.
The Justice Roopanwal report adds that if Vemula had been angry with the university’s decision to expel him, he would have said that “in specific words” in his suicide note or at least indicated it.
The report also quotes a number of university officials and staff, many of whom said claimed that expulsion could not have been the reason for his ending his life.
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