The arrest of two former students of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), for allegedly plotting to kill Vice-Chancellor Podile Appa Rao to avenge the death of Rohith Vemula, has been rubbished as a ‘framed case’ by the writers and poets of Virasam. Virasam is an association of revolutionary poets and writers.
Rohith Vemula was a Dalit PhD student from University of Hyderabad. He committed suicide two years ago, allegedly due to caste discrimination by the Vice Chancellor. His death sparked a nation-wide stir against the BJP government and the VC.
Besides Virasam, Rohith’s brother Raja Vemula and Maoists also condemned the arrest and dubbed the incident a ‘fake arrest’.
The Maoists also released a statement saying that they never intended to kill the Vice-Chancellor.
On Saturday, the Andhra Pradesh police through a press release informed that they had arrested former students of UoH, Chandan Kumar Misra and A Prudhviraj, at Pitchukulapadu in Khammam district on Friday while they were on their way to eliminate Appa Rao.
However, rubbishing the claims of the police, Virasam members in a statement said that the case against Prudhviraj, who has been their member since 2017, was fabricated.
Prudhviraj was earlier arrested by the Andhra police in 2013 while he was allegedly taking Maoist leader Chandranna’s wife Mothibai to a hospital.
False case?
Speaking to TNM, activist Vara Vara Rao, a member of Virasam, termed the arrest ‘unjust’.
“Both Prudhviraj and Chandan were abducted from Prudhvi’s home in Gannavaram on March 28 by plainclothes policemen. The neighbours are witness to it… then how come police arrested them on March 30?” Rao asked.
He said that it was evident that the two were tortured by the police, as their arrest was not disclosed for almost four days.
“This is a totally false case framed by the police,” Rao remarked.
Further he claimed that Maoists or any group harbouring such ideologies never harmed academicians.
“The state has the habit of killing lawyers, academicians and intellectuals, not Maoists. This is an absurd allegation.”
Dismissing the police’s claims, Professor G Haragopal, an activist who has been following the case, said that the Andhra police had created a ‘ridiculous’ theory that the students were planning to kill the Vice-Chancellor.
“After the two were abducted, we moved a habeas corpus. Not knowing what to do, the police cooked up this most ridiculous story to defend their unlawful detention.”
“I doubt if they (police) have any substantial evidence against the arrested students. It is actually counter-productive for the police, because their entire credibility will be ruined now. Tomorrow even if they make a genuine arrest, their theories will always come under serious scrutiny,” he pointed out.
Prudhviraj was a student of the University of Hyderabad till 2013. However, he discontinued his studies after his arrest and incarceration in the Warangal central jail. He is currently pursuing his LLB at Siddhartha Law College in Vijayawada.
Chandan also pursued his PG in 2013 at UoH.
Police alleged that the duo remained in touch with each other even after they left UoH. In 2017, they met Haribhushan, who is the Telangana state Maoist Committee secretary, at Cherla through a member of the Telangana Vidhya Vedika (TVV). Early this year, after a second meeting with Haribhushan, they were given directions to assassinate the VC, which would ensure that more students joined their fold, police claimed.