Police warned HCU women students of rape, says fact-finding team

Keeping the Hyderabad Central University cauldron boiling, an independent fact-finding team has claimed that the policemen, who cracked down on students protesting at the university, had allegedly threatened to rape the women students. Specifically focussing on the incidents that happened on the HCU campus on March 22, the team claimed that there was widespread attack on women students. Apart from abusive language, threats to rape women students were uttered by the police. This is gist of the interim report of the team comprising senior human rights activists, acedemicians and lawyers. The panel consisted of Henri Tiphagne (Human Rights Defenders Alert), Tara Rao (Amnesty International), Barnard Fatima (International Movement against all Forms of Discrimination and Racism), Kuffir Nulgundwar (Round Table India), Kiruba Muniswamy (Supreme Court Lawyer), Beena Pallical (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights), Ramesh Nathan (National Dalit Movement for Justice), Asha Kotwal (All India Mahila Dalit Adhikar Manch) and Paul Divakar (Asia Dalit Right Forum). Why were the police on the campus? They were there because the leftist students, who were till then peaceful, went on the rampage, damaging furniture and attacking students to protest against the resumption of duties by Vice-Chancellor Apparao after the research scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide outrage subsided. The students wanted to hold a condolence meeting to which JNU students union presdient Kanhaiya Kumar was to address. Since the students attacked the VC lodge, Apparao sought police protection. The Vice-Chancellor also barred outsiders from entering the vast campus. The students ran all over the place, making the police chase them, TV clips showed. There were women police, too. They were handling the girl students. At least in the TV clips, no policeman were seen tackling women students. Students engaged the policemen all the time. The team wants free mobility in and out of the university. Hyderabadis, too, want the same, because the HCU has come out tops, unlike the JNU which, despite the best faculty in the country, does not figure anywhere in the ranks. The team further says the university must be brought back to regular functioning. This is absolutesly essential for the academic health of the university, `which has suffered significantly.'