HYDERABAD: Alongside cries of Appa Rao Podile's ouster, the demand for annulling Vipin Srivastava's appointment as interim vice chancellor of University of Hyderabad (UoH) peaked on Monday, with students accusing the Centre of replacing one "murderer" with another.Flashing the findings of the Pavarala Committee, constituted post the tragic death of Dalit scholar Senthil Kumar in 2008, protesting students claimed that it was Srivastava who drove the PhD student to suicide. The interim VC was dean of the School of Physics when Sethil Kumar, a student of the department, committed suicide by consuming poison in his hostel room. Reports, thereafter, squarely attributed this incident to caste-based discrimination rampant on campus."...it is a fact that most of the students affected by the inconsistencies and ambiguities in procedures were SC/ST students, leading to the building up of a perception of discrimination among students belonging to these communities. All the Physics students that this committee could meet have reported their sense that the school was acting against the interests of the SC/ST students," the five-member body chaired by Vinod Pavarala had concluded in 2008.It had stressed how many Dalit students "from backgrounds where such discrimination was not uncommon, tended to attribute the problems they were facing in the school to caste-based discrimination". Senthil Kumar came from an extremely poor pig-breeding community from a village in Tamil Nadu's Salem district."The ministry of human resources development and the UoH administration selectively appoints and promotes professors and administrators to higher positions who specialise in killing students from marginalised communities," said a strongly-worded release issued by the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice on Monday.This echoed the reactions of the university's SC/ST Faculty Forum that blamed Srivastava for Rohith Vemula's death too. The interim VC was chairman of the executive council sub-committee that suspended the five Dalit scholars, including Vemula, in September last year. "His presence on campus is legally untenable when a judicial probe is on," argued Sripathi Ramadu, member of the forum.Rohith's death reiterated the pronounced caste divide existing on campus that, university insiders say, is far more widespread in the science departments. The reason, they claim, is the dominance of "upper caste" faculty members."A sizable section of this faculty lack any social concern and are hesitant to be associated with students from disadvantaged communities," said a senior professor, claiming how this Brahmanical culture snowballed into a deep-rooted crisis during the reign of the earlier VC, Ramakrishna Ramaswamy. He served between 2011 and 2014 before stepping down from the post owing to personal reasons 18 months prior to the completion of his tenure."It was Ramaswamy who popularized the terms 'science' and 'non-science'. He never held joint meetings of teachers from these two categories. Though he tried to portray himself as a pro-Dalit VC, the reality was far removed," rued a Dalit professor, alleging how his attitude left several students "suffocated". Srivastava, according to him, was part of the former VC's 'camp'.UoH students couldn't agree more. "It may be one of the reasons why Rohith cancelled his course that he was pursuing under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research fellowship midway and joined PhD in the School of Social Sciences," said C Raju, an MA student from the science department.Interestingly, some even pointed out how teachers interacting with students currently on strike are largely from "non-science" departments. "The rest aren't bothered," said another professor, adding, "Unless a well-represented committee, comprising a cross-section of faculty members, is set up to start a dialogue with students, this issue is unlikely to be resolved. Students are sure to reject the likes of Srivastava outright."