Hyderabad: Fresh unrest and trouble gripped the Hyderabad Central University campus on Tuesday, with under-fire vice-chancellor P. Appa Rao resuming his duties.

Students staged a violent demonstration at the VC’s Lodge and ransacked his office in protest againt his return to the campus.

Window panes, office furniture and other property was damaged as some threw stones.

The students went on a rampage, pulling down shelves, damaging computers and vandalising the office completely.

Police said both the house and the office of the VC were targeted during the students’ attack, forcing them to intervene.

The protesting students confined the vice-chancellor to a room for almost six hours shouting slogans against him and demanding his removal.

He left the place only after the police, using force, took the agitators into custody and brought the situation under control.

The students also clashed with the police and hurled stones at them, injuring a few policemen.

The incident occurred as the VC had called a news conference at his office in the morning. Appa Rao had gone on an indefinite leave on January 24 after a Dalit PhD student, Rohith Vemul,a had committed suicide following his suspension and “social boycott”.

Vemula’s suicide by hanging on January 17 in a hostel room triggered a prolonged strike both by the students and the staff demanding action against responsible for driving him to suicide.

With a big crowd of students gathering at the VC’s Lodge at the university campus, police rushed to the scene. Fearing that the situation may slip out of control the police used force and made a baton charge to disperse the protesters. Some students were taken in to custody.

Meanwhile Appa Rao rejected the students’ demand for his resignation.

“A section of students cannot dictate terms to me”, he said advising the agitators to come for talks on their issues. Expressing pain and anguish over the violent incidents, he said that those indulging in unruly behaviour did not belong to any organisation.

Appa Rao said he decided to return to his duties as the judicial inquiry ordered in to Rohith Vemula’s suicide was completed. He regretted that students were relying only on rumours and heresy to target him.

“If any group of students is going to dictate who should be the vice-chancellor, this will be a national problem tomorrow”, he said.

Apart from Appa Rao, the agitating students had also held two BJP ministers Smiriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya responsible for Vemula’s suicide sparking off a nation wide political row.

The students had alleged that at the behest of BJP’s students wing ABVP, local minister Bandaru Dattatreya had written a letter to Human Resources Development minister Irani alleging that the university had turned in to a den of casteist and anti national politics.

Later Smiriti Irani’s office sent a spate of five letters to HCU Vice Chancellor seeking the report of action against the students allegedly involved in attacking ABVP members.

It had led to suspension of Rohith Vemula and four other students from the hostel. On the day all the suspended students had gone on a hunger strike to demand revocation of their suspension Rohith hanged himself in a friend’s room in the hostel.

Tension was prevailing amid the reports that Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union President Kanhaiah Kumar was also likely to visit the campus to express his solidarity with the agitating students of HCU.

“Kanhaiah is a student of another university. Whether to allow him to visit the campus will be decided after consulting the other senior members of the university staff,” Appa Rao said.

As the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice was determined to go ahead with the planned meeting on the campus to be addressed by Kanhaiah Kumar on Wednesday, security was tightened on campus.

Kumar, who made headlines worldwide following his arrest by Delhi police on charges of sedition, is scheduled to participate in several programmes including a session on the violation of constitutional rights in Hyderabad, and another meeting in Warangal, during his visit on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in another related development, Hyderabad Central University on Tuesday issued a cheque of Rs177,000 (Dh9,746) to the mother of Rohith Vemula towards his fellowship arrears.