PM breaks silence on dalit student's suicide

PM breaks silence on dalit student's suicide

Lucknow:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, 22^nd January 2016,  broke his silence on the suicide of a dalit scholar in Hyderabad University and expressed grief saying he felt the pain but faced slogans from a handful of students at a convocation ceremony here.

"...when there is news that a youth of my country, Rohith, was forced to commit suicide, what his family must have gone through. Mother India has lost a son. There will be reasons, there will be politics (surrounding it) but the fact remains that a mother has lost her son. I feel the pain very well," a visibly emotional Modi said.

He was speaking as the Chief Guest at the convocation ceremony of the B R Ambedkar University here, where a couple of students shouted slogans like "Modi murdabad" and "Modi go back, Modi go back" and "inquilab zindabad" as he began his speech.

The two students, who were donning blue stole, meant for Masters degree scholars,were evicted by police and detained. They have been identified as Ram Karan and Bhuvnesh Arya.

The suicide by Rohith Vemula, a dalit scholar of the Hyderabad Central University, has kicked up a major row with Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani and Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya coming under intense attack from political rivals, who have blamed them for the incident and demanded their removal.

University Proctor Kamal Jaiswal said, "we were taken aback. We had taken all precautions. Action will be taken as per rules." 

However, Modi did not go into the politics behind Rohith's suicide.