Amidst high drama at the University of Hyderabad campus in Gachibowli, the Cyberabad police have detained Radhika and Raja Vemula, mother and brother of Rohith Vemula, as they tried to enter the University campus, late on Tuesday evening.
Several other student protesters were also arrested along with the Vemulas. The University has barred the entry of outsiders into the campus, and since Radhika and Raja were trying to enter the campus, the police took them into preventive detention under section 151 of the CrPC to prevent them from trespassing.
As the police dragged the mother and son into the police vans, protesters shouted slogans, and a student is seen asking the police, “You should be arresting VC Appa Rao, instead you are arresting us?”
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Speaking to TNM from the Gachibowli police station, Raja Vemula confirmed that they had been detained, and were being housed at the police station. "The police took us around the Gachibowli stadium, and the cops just kept driving us around the stadium for a while," Raja said.
He said that they have been asked to wait at the police station.
Meanwhile, angry students at the University burnt the effigy of Telangana Chief Minister KCR, shouting slogans against the Telangana police and the state government.
Students and supporters had gathered at the University on Tuesday to pay their respects to Rohith at a stupa that has been erected on the campus. Police refused to allow Rohith's family near the memorial, and detained them along with several other students.
Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student at the University, had killed himself last year on January 17, allegedly due to harassment from the University management.
Earlier in the day, the police had accused Frontline journalist Kunal Shankar of 'trespassing', and detained him for a few hours. “I had gone to campus on Monday night on the invitation of a professor. I ended up staying the night and the next morning when I was taking pictures on campus, the university security picked me up from the main gate and started questioning me,” Kunal told TNM.