The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) Office for Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (SC/BC) has strongly "condemned people who are responsible for the suicide of the Dalit Scholar Rohith Vemula" on Sunday and has called for the "eradication of caste discrimination in society."
Fr. Devasagayaraj, Secretary of CBCI Office for SC/BC said, "The office sternly condemns the people who are responsible for the suicide of the Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad hostel who killed himself on 17th January 2016, Sunday night nearly two weeks after he and four other students were suspended by authorities and thrown out of the hostel," it a press statement today.
"It is a shame for our democratic country that Casteism took the life of a Dalit scholar whose education could not save his dignity to be a human. It is sad that the Universities which are supposed to inculcate the values of equality and inclusion through education are not in a position to give equal opportunities to Dalits, rather deprive them of their basic rights to education," it stated.
"The caste system which denied education to Dalits continues its strategy by giving pressures to the Dalits not to pursue the higher education which will shake the unequal structure of the caste system," the statement added.
"The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India office for SC/BC expresses its solidarity with the victim's family and friends who lost a great and talented Dalit leader and earnestly requests the State and the Central Governments eradicate the caste discrimination in the society and especially in the educational institutions and honor our Constitution," the statement concluded.
The death of the dalit scholar has cause outrage in the country and various political parties too have come forward to condemn the circumstances leading to the death of the scholar.
