 The suicide of Rohith Vemula on 18 January 2016 sparked protests and outrage from across India and gained widespread media attention as an alleged case of discrimination against Dalits and backward classes in India in which elite educational institutions have been purportedly seen as an enduring vestige of caste-based discrimination against students belonging to "backward classes".On December 2016, a Hindu Munnani Union Secretary and three of his accomplices gang-raped, and murdered a 17-year-old minor Dailt girl in Keezhamaligai village, Ariyalur district.The police revealed that the Hindu Munnani functionary was irritated over the lower-caste dalit girl who insisted to marry her after she got pregnant with him.