New Delhi: Union Education Minister Smriti Irani seems to be soup again after the doctor who declared Rohith Vemula dead challenged the statement of Irani.
In a fiery speech in the Parliament on Wednesday, Irani spoke about Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula and said that there was a chance Rohith Vemula, the research scholar found hanging at the Hyderabad Central University on January 17, could have been revived.
“This is how politics was played on this child and his dead body. Nobody allowed a doctor near him. The police has reported… Not one attempt was made to revive this child. Not one attempt was made to take him to a doctor. Instead his body was used as a political tool. No police was allowed till 6.30 the next morning. Not me, but the Telangana police is saying this,” the minister said.
However, this has been refuted by the doctor who declared Rohith dead.
Dr Rajasree Malpath, Chief Medical Officer at the Hyderabad Central University told NDTV that she was called in moments after Rohith was found hanging from a fan and that when she came to examine Rohith, he had been dead for at least two hours.
“Around 7.30 pm I got a call from the hostel. I reached within 4 minutes. The body was already put on the cot. I examined for pulse and BP, despite knowing he is probably dead. There was no pulse or BP. His body was cold, stiff and rigid. His tongue was protruding and rigor mortis had set in,” the doctor told NDTV.
A video of the room where Rohith’s body was kept that day, shared by his friends, shows policemen next to the body, which contradicts the minister’s claim that the police were not allowed near the body till the next morning.
The student was found dead days after he was banned from the hostel and other common areas on campus for allegedly attacking an activist of the BJP-linked ABVP. His supporters and opposition parties allege that Rohith, a Dalit, was ostracised because of his caste.
