As soon as the news of dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide at the Hyderabad Central University spread, student groups in Delhi and Hyderabad sent out a call to activists to assemble in protest.
Their target in Delhi was the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which had reportedly received a letter from BJP MP – and Minister of State for Labour and Employment – Bandaru Dattatreya, claiming that anti-national activities were being carried out on the campus, which had "become a den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics."
Protests erupted in other cities too. In Delhi, students from Jawaharlal University, Delhi University and Ambedkar University assembled outside the HRD Ministry building to register their protest.
The protest, however, met a fierce response from the police. Activists claimed they were beaten up and detained for hours at the Parliament Police Station. As the video above shows, water cannons were fired and several protesters were injured.
Meanwhile, more support poured in for the protest, and soon the road outside the police station was blocked, until the police released detained demonstrators.
Similar protests and mourning meetings were held at Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Hyderabad Central University.
Here are some photographs from the protests in Delhi:
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