Andhra police foils plan to assassinate Hyderabad University VC

The Andhra Pradesh Police on Saturday claimed to have foiled a plan to assassinate University of Hyderabad Vice Chancellor V Appa Rao to avenge the death of Rohith Vemula who committed suicide on campus in January 2016. 

The East Godavari police arrested two people who allegedly conspired to Rao. The police identified the duo as Ankala Prudhiviraj of Andhra Pradesh and Chandan Kumar Misra of West Bengal. 

The police said that the two wanted to join Naxal group CPI (Maoist) group and had met Haribhushan Telangana State Maoists Committee secretary in the Cherla forest area in December 2017.

“They discussed various issues relating to the UoH and the Rohith Vemula suicide issue and the developments following it. During the talk, they planned to kill the Vice Chancellor so as to attract the students to the Maoist party," Superintendent of Police, East Godavari Vishal Gunni, was quoted as saying by Deccan Chronicle. 

"They believed that if the vice chancellor is killed students might get inclined to the Maoist movement and join the group in large numbers,” he said. 

The duo had planned to drop in some pamphlets bearing the signature of Maoist to spread the message of their involvement, the SP said. 

They were nabbed by the police on Friday evening.

Appa Rao has been provided with one plus one security following threats to his life, V C Sajjanar, Commissioner Cyberabad, said. 

“We will review the security and beef it up depending upon the threat perception,” he said.