Protests by students from varsities across Delhi and a hunger strike by their JNU counterparts over the alleged delay in justice to Rohith Vemula continued on Thursday even as police detained 40 of them from outside the HRD Ministry.

Police said 40 students were detained from outside Shastri Bhawan when they tried to enter the premises of the ministry.

Students from left-backed All India Students Association (AISA) and Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) marched to the HRD Ministry, demanding the resignations of Union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya and the Vice-Chancellor of Hyderabad University.

150 protesting students, who were detained yesterday and had went on an indefinite hunger strike at Parliament Street police station, today dispersed to JNU and the protest venue near the HRD Ministry. They, however, continued with their hunger strike.

Meanwhile, a former Allahabad High Court judge Ashok Kumar Roopanwal was appointed by the Centre to probe circumstances leading to suicide of dalit scholar of Hyderabad Central University(HCU) even as its teachers also went on a hunger strike today backing the protesting students.

The appointment of the judge to head the one-man Judicial Commission was announced at a time when the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice spearheading the agitation over Rohith Vemula's suicide on January 17 said that students would intensify the "struggle" till all their demands are met.