We were beaten up in police custody : Hyderabad University students and teachers

Twenty-four students and two teachers were arrested last week after the university's Vice-Chancellor P Appa Rao was held hostage for nearly six hours by a large group of students protesting against research scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in January.

How the police evicted them has been harshly reviewed by a team that included human rights activists and lawyers who found that women students were threatened with rape, and that Muslims were referred to as "terrorists" by the police.

"My students were beaten right from the time they were picked up and all through the while they were in police custody. Even I was not spared,"  Professor KY Ratnam told NDTV..

M Krishank, an activist of the Congress-affiliated students' union NSUI, said the students were shifted to six different police stations in less than 24 hours. "Appa Rao cannot continue as Vice-Chancellor. We will continue our protests in the university," he said, before being lifted up by cheering supporters outside the Cherlapally Central Jail.

The University campus has been on boil since Rohith Vemula, a 26-year-old Dalit student, hung himself, days after being banned from the hostel and other areas on campus. A month before he died,  Vemula wrote a letter to the VC alleging caste discrimination against Dalits on campus. Students say instead of helping him out, the VC  went ahead with suspending  Vemula for allegedly assaulting members of a rival student group affiliated to the BJP.

A section of students who have formed a group called the Joint Action Committee says the Vice-Chancellor is guilty of persecuting  Vemula, driving him to suicide.