After a fortnight-long unrest over the suicide of dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, classes at the Hyderabad Central University resumed today even as the agitating students continued the stir over their demands by launching a relay hunger strike.
"Classes are going on. Administration is also working," a spokesperson for Joint Action Committee (JAC) spearheading the campaign said.
"We have set a deadline of ten days. We will continue our agitation in the form of relay hunger strike and organising seminars and rallies peacefully. People from outside also have come to express solidarity with our agitation. (VC) Professor Appa Rao should go. There is no change in that demand," JAC spokesperson Dickens Leonard told PTI.
The SC/ST Faculty Forum, whose members had lent firm support to the agitation, said the teachers had also resumed academic and administrative responsibilities on the request of in-charge Vice Chancellor M Periasamy.
Periasamy had yesterday held a meeting of the representatives of JAC to discuss the demands put forward by the student body.
Periasamy took charge of the varsity after in-charge VC Vipin Srivastava proceeded on leave on Saturday in the wake of the agitators objecting to him being asked to officiate in the absence of Appa Rao, who had gone on leave after the stir escalated.
The HCU sailed through rough weather with agitations ever since Vemula committed suicide in a hostel room on the campus on January 17.
He was one of the five students suspended from using hostel facilities for their alleged role in a case related to the attack of ABVP leader N Susheel Kumar.
Subsequently, after Vemula's suicide,the university terminated the suspension of the four students.
The agitation had received support from almost all non-BJP parties and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi visited the campus twice.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy, CPI(M) general Secretary Sitaram Yechury, YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy and MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had also made it to the campus to express solidarity with the agitating students.
A JAC leader said the indefinite hunger strike being undertaken by three students has been converted into a relay hunger strike.
Earlier, two batches of seven students each had undertaken the indefinite hunger strike seeking the removal and arrest of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao, among other demands.
They had been shifted to the university health centre following deterioration of their health condition.
