JAIPUR: Around 400 Dalit students staged a protest on Tuesday over expulsion of Ram Lakhan Meena, a professor of Central University of Rajasthan (CUR), Ajmer.
Meena had been advocating for the rights of Umesh Kishor Jonwal, another Dalit scholar expelled by the varsity earlier.
The students raised slogans against the CUR administration and burned an effigy of its vicechancellor Arun K Pujari in front of Rajasthan University. Some of the agitators were arrested for holding the protest without permission deputy commissioner of poilce (East), Kunwar Rastradeep said.
The protesting students drew a parallel between Jonwal and Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar of Hyderabad University, who committed suicide in January after he was thrown out of the hostel for allegedly assaulting ABVP members, and said Jonwal was being harassed because he was a Dalit.
Last week, Meena was terminated for allegedly supporting Jonwal, expelled for “prolonged absence”. However, Meena’s termination letter does not state any reason and said that his services were not confirmed.