Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is all set to visit the University of Hyderabad (UoH) campus again on Friday and is expected to spend the night at the makeshift camp to express solidarity with the agitating students demanding justice for Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula who committed suicide on January 17.
He is arriving by a special flight on Friday night even as the students' stir over the suicide intensified with faculty and social activists joining in.
The students are all getting prepared to observe the birthday of Rohith on Saturday when he would have turned 27 years of age.
Rahul will participate in a candle light rally on the campus and interact with the students and will be on the campus till Saturday afternoon. The members of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of Congress, are also expected to join the ongoing protest demonstration in the varsity.
Rahul had visited the campus on January 19, two days after Rohith's suicide, and demanded immediate removal of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao and making Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya accountable for the student's death.
The students have been demanding removal of the vice chancellor, who has since gone on leave, payment of Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia and a job for at least one member of Rohith’s family, unconditional revoking of suspension of four Dalit research scholars and booking of cases under SC /ST atrocities Act against those responsible for Rohith's death.
They are also demanding resignation of the interim Vice Chancellor Vipin Srivastava since he was also part of the decision to suspend five Dalit research scholars including Rohith in December last.
Since January 17 when Rohith committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his friend's room, the UoH campus has been in the grip of unrest and it continues to remain shut as the JAC pressed ahead with their protest.
