The Congress’s promise to pass a law to address caste atrocities on campuses if the INDIA bloc comes to power at the Centre is seen as a damage-control exercise after Cyberabad police declared that Rohith Vemula was not a Dalit.

In the closure report filed before the court on March 21, the Cyberabad police concluded that Vemula was not a Dalit and he committed suicide as he feared being exposed for wrongly claiming to be a member of the Scheduled Caste Mala community.

While Vemula’s mother is from the Mala community, his estranged father is from the Vaddera (OBC) community.

The report came just 10 days ahead of the May 13 Lok Sabha polls in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

A PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, Vemula had committed suicide in January 2016, sparking a nationwide uproar against the alleged triggers that led him to the extreme act. A Dalit from the Mala community, Vemula’s suicide was linked to caste discrimination although he had absolved anyone of responsibility for his act in a
suicide note.

Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy has promised to reinvestigate the case while Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal reiterated that a Rohith Vemula Act would be passed if INDIA came to power at the Centre.

The Congress, however, distanced itself from the closure report, pointing out that it was prepared in June last year when the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government headed by K. Chandrashekar Rao was in power in Telangana.

The Telangana chief minister on Saturday met Radhika Vemula, Rohith’s mother, and assured her of reinvestigating the case and forwarded her memorandum to director-general of police Ravi Gupta.

However, rights activists who had waged a prolonged battle for justice for Vemula and his family, see the quick moves by the Congress government as a damage-control exercise.

“The chief minister’s background as a former RSS man could be one reason why he quickly met Radhika Vemula and set in motion the reinvestigation process,” a Dalit activist, who declined to be named, told The Telegraph on Monday.

Former IAS officer and Dalit activist Akunuri Murali, however, felt that while the promise to enact the Rohith Vemula Act was in itself not to control any damage, he termed the police report “ugly” since it was far from the truth.