full text of the letter addressed by CPI(M)
General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury addressed to the Telangana Chief
Minister, Shri K Chandrasekar Rao  on the brutal attack on students and
faculty members of Hyderabad Central University.

Shri Chandrasekar Rao Garu,

I have tried in vain to contact you over telephone the whole day today.
Several messages have been left with your staff, but there has been no
response.  Having thus failed, I am writing this letter.

I am writing this letter with a sense of anguish and anger.  I am
particularly agonized at writing this letter to you on the martyrdom day of
Shahid Bhagat Singh.

The brutal police attack against students and other sections of the academic
community in the Hyderabad Central University yesterday has been followed up
by another round of attack today.  Continuing the manner with which the
students were dealt with by the Telangana police yesterday, the police today
have reportedly mounted yet another attack inside the campus.  The manner in
which the girl students were attacked by the male police with  the liberal
usage of foul language against them is reprehensible.

Following the stoppage of water connection, access to wifi, food supplies to
the hostel messes, the students themselves organized the preparation of food
for the hostel inmates.  Today, all these facilities were attacked by the
police and the Vice Chancellor has reportedly shut down the hostels.

Most of us in the country are aghast at the manner in which such brutal
assault is mounted on the university community by the Telangana police in
one of the premier Central universities of our country.

The Vice Chancellor who proceeded on leave following the tragic suicide of
Rohith Vemula was booked under charges of aiding and abetting this suicide
by creating the circumstances leading to this tragedy.  Instead of
proceeding against the Vice Chancellor on this case, the Telangana police
has resorted to such brutality against the students.

The students were protesting against the return of this Vice Chancellor and
demanding that the case against him must be proceeded with.  It is clear
that the police action under the sanction of the state government was to
facilitate the return of this Vice Chancellor.

Further, we are informed that the first decision taken by the Vice
Chancellor upon the return was to defer the meeting of the Academic Council
on Thursday (March 24), which was convened by the in-charge Vice Chancellor
to discuss the setting up of an anti-discrimination committee on the campus,
to ensure adequate representation of SCs and STs  on various committees of
the university and to consider the proposal to increase the non-NET
fellowship from Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 25,000 per month on parity with the Junior
Research Fellowship in the country. The in-charge Vice Chancellor has
reportedly pleaded that he had no knowledge  of the Vice Chancellor
returning to assume charge of the university.

The Telangana government, under your stewardship, has been vocal in
announcing that it champions the interests of the overwhelming bulk of the
state’s population that comes from SC/ST and various Other Backward Classes
and the marginalized sections.  Surely, your government and administration
cannot concur with these latest decisions of this Vice Chancellor.  Yet, it
is the Telangana police, under the remit of your government, that has
spearheaded this brutal attack against the university and the students.
This has happened as the university community continues to remain
traumatized over the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula and the circumstances
created on the campus leading to such a tragedy.

Instead of proceeding, I repeat, against the Vice Chancellor on the basis of
the case registered against him, your government has discharged this
responsibility of mounting this attack against this university community.
It is being reported in the media that 28 students, who are victims of this
brutal lathicharge, have now been remanded  into custody and lodged at the
Central Jail.

In the fitness of living up to your own  proclamations and assurances, the
arrested students must be released immediately and the cases against them
must be dropped.  The Telangana police must immediately proceed on the
registered cases against the Vice Chancellor.  As this is a Central
University, we are demanding of the Central Government that their appointed
Vice Chancellor be removed forthwith.

Yours sincerely

(Sitaram Yechury)

General Secretary, CPI(M)