The Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission(HRC) has issued a notice to Hyderabad Vice Chancellor Apparao Podile, who is being investigated in the case filed over the death of Rohith Vemula.
The notice comes after a complaint filed by Namrata Jaiswal and Ramu Goud of the Telangana AAP. They approached the commission when the non-teaching staff began to protest the vandalism of university property by boycotting their duties.
They said that the UoH authorities had closed all the hostel messes, which affected over 5,000 students, leaving them with no water and food. They wrote that the varsity administration also barred media from entering the institution’s premises and cut of Internet connectivity.
These are the main elements of the AAP members’ complaint:
Around the same time, the VC’s office issued a press release on Thursday alleging that the media was misreporting facts. It also said that the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile called a meeting of all faculty members at 10:00 a.m. at VC’s lodge after he learnt about the boycott of non-teaching staff.
A large number of faculty attended the meeting and the Vice-Chancellor and the faculty requested the non-teaching staff to call off their boycott and help resume services to hostels on humanitarian grounds, as the hostel students were put through a lot of inconvenience, the release said.
The release also said that the administration realized that the students wanted more time to give assurances to the employees’ JAC on their demands. However, keeping in view of the larger interest of students’ difficulties the employees JAC had accepted the special request from Vice Chancellor, DSW and Chief Warden and agreed to restore the mess services from 24 March morning.