Hundreds of students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi staged a protest against the recent fee hike and some other directives in the Freedom Square of the university this morning.
They were to march to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) auditorium in the university campus where university Vice President, M. Venkaiyah Naidu, was addressing the institute’s convocation ceremony. Police stopped the students before they reached the auditorium however.
The protesters engaged in a scuffle with police when the latter tried to barricade them. The protest against fee hike and other issues has been going on for two weeks now. Police took to lathicharge and several students were injured, it was reported.
However, Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, who accompanied Naidu, met Aishi Ghosh, president of the JNU Students Union, and assured that the students’ concerns will be addressed.
The university authorities recently raised the fee for hostels, mess and security from Rs. 2,500 per month to Rs. 7,000 per month, which the students said would be discriminatory to underprivileged students. The students have been protesting against other issues too such as the curfew timing for hostels which has been fixed at 11 pm, the imposition of a dress code and requirement of five-day prior permission for holding any meeting. They said the students’ body was not consulted before implementing the fee hike and that their requests to talk to the vice-chancellor were turned down repeatedly. That is why they had to resort to the protest today.
Comments are closed.