A group of students staged a protest this morning at the Visva Bharati University campus in Shantiniketan during the 50th convocation ceremony that is being attended by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind and Governor of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankhar.
The students, belonging to the Democratic Students’ Organisation (DSO), were protesting the deployment of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in the campus. Police quickly brought the situation under control. In October this year, the Visva-Bharati University had asked the Centre to permanently deploy CISF personnel on its campus. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) then approached the CISF, seeking the permanent deployment of a contingent on the campus.
The university authorities have asked the Centre for deployment of paramilitary forces inside the campus for security purposes and to handle “occasional protests by students”.
Earlier this year, the students had protested against the fee hike of the university saying that it was the first step towards privatisation of the university. A large number of students feel that posting of paramilitary forces inside the educational institution goes strictly against the ideals of its founder Rabindranath Tagore. Earlier, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) had condemned the move saying that the cost of deploying the forces could be used for infrastructural causes.
The Governor – while reaching for the ceremony – got down from his car en route Shantiniketan on seeing some students, and spent some time talking to them.
[Image representational]
