The family of University of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula on Friday said it will legally contest the Telangana police's closure report in his 2016 suicide case.
His brother Raja Vemula claimed the district collector has to decide on the family's SC status, prompting the police to say that they will conduct a further investigation.
In its closure report on Rohith Vemula's death, the Telangana police claimed he was not a Dalit and died by suicide in 2016 as he feared that his "real caste" would be discovered.
Citing the doubts expressed by Rohith Vemula's family, Telangana director general of police Ravi Gupta said in a statement late on Friday that a petition will be filed in the court concerned, requesting the magistrate to permit further investigations.
Raja Vemula told news channels that Telangana high court gave an option to file a 'protest petition' in the lower court.
Whether Rohith Vemula belonged to the Scheduled Caste (community or not should come from the district collector of Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, he said and asked how the police can say he was not an SC.
Raja Vemula also said that they plan to meet Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on the matter.
Police chief Gupta said the investigation officer in the case was the assistant commissioner of police, Madhapur, and that the final closure report was prepared before November, based on the investigation conducted.
The final closure report was officially filed in the jurisdictional court on March 21 by the investigation officer, he said in the statement.
In its closure report, the police also gave a clean chit to the accused, citing a lack of evidence.
The university's then vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile, former Bharatiya Janata Party MP Bandaru Dattatreya, BJP ex-MLC N Ramachander Rao, and some ABVP leaders were among the accused.
Meanwhile, the BJP on Friday alleged that the Congress and the Left tried to gain political mileage by linking Vemula's suicide.
Former BJP MLC N Ramchander Rao, an accused in the 2016 Vemula suicide case, alleged that Congress and Left parties had tried to gain political mileage by linking the death of the University of Hyderabad student to the BJP.
Vemula's suicide was painful but the attitude of the Congress and Left parties was deplorable, Ramchander Rao said.
Rao's remarks came after Telangana Police filed a closure report in the case before a local court and gave a clean chit to the accused, including Rao.
A group of students protested at the University of Hyderabad and raised slogans against the BJP, Union minister Smriti Irani and former university vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile, who was also among the accused persons.
In a social media post, the Students' Federation of India said the closure report filed by police "on Rohith Vemula's institutional murder is an exercise in irony".
"The Congress government and its police are supporting the false narrative of the BJP by tagging Rohith not to be a Dalit despite lack of proof of the same," it said.
