Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani’s statement in Parliament that no police officers or doctors were allowed to revive Rohith Vemula after he was found hanging is false, a friend of the Hyderabad University scholar said on Friday. The friend, whose name wasn't revealed, along with Vemula’s mother Radhika and brother Raja, addressed a press conference “to expose the false words being propagated by [Union] minister Smriti Irani in Parliament”. He said, “This statement by Smriti Irani has malicious intent to divert the entire issue that has started troubling [the] BJP.” He added that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s politicisation of the matter that led to Vemula’s suicide.

Vemula's friend also produced a letter the scholar had written to the vice-chancellor of the university on December 18, in which he said he was going to commit suicide. “I want your highness to make preparations for euthanasia for students like me,” he said, quoting from the letter. Claiming that Irani had a copy of the letter, he questioned why she was reluctant to bring up the statements he made against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Moreover, Vemula's mother said, “Smriti Irani, this is not a [television] serial; this is real life. Bring out the facts, don’t fabricate them.” She demanded to know on what basis her son was branded an extremist and anti-national by Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya in his letter to the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Vemula’s friend also questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had said India had “lost her son”, about what action was taken against Dattatreya for branding Vemula as an extremist. On Thursday, the university’s on-duty medical examiner had also refuted Irani’s claim that no doctor was allowed to examine Vemula’s body.