Students of JNU angered by the seat-cut according to the new UGC gazette staged protests on Friday both inside and outside the Campus. While a bunch of students who blocked the main gate of the university, some marched till the UGC office at ITO hoping to meet with the officials regarding the seat-cut for M/Phil and PHD admissions this year. The students even lay down on the busy Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg for roughly 20 minutes, bringing traffic to a halt.
Student blocking the gate ended up in a clash between the guards and the students where both sides allege assault.
“The affected students have blocked the north gate to put pressure on the admin to roll back the UGC gazette which has resulted in reduction of research intake from around 1000 seats to around 100. Most centres don’t have seats this year. Also, yesterday, the guards resorted to violence which was unprecedented in JNU before.” said Baasit Abubakr, an M.Phil student from JNU who witnessed the gate blockade.
Meanwhile the protest staged by JNUSU to UGC office at ITO on Friday demanded that the chairman come out and talk to them, or that a delegation of students be allowed to meet him or some senior official. However both the demands were not met.
“We have sent over 20 emails to UGC officials but they haven’t met us even once till now. Today, we were assured by the police that if we protest peacefully, like we were, they would make us meet UGC officials. Instead, they dilly-dallied, provoked us, and later said that no senior official was free to meet,” said JNUSU president Mohit Pandey.
In fact, the students alleged that the police were provoking them to take up a fight. Frustrated by the situation the students blocked traffic in the ITO area on Friday which was followed by agitated passerby who even sloganeered against JNU.
JNUSU general secretary Satarupa Chakraborty also blamed the police for encouraging the public to beat JNU students. “We will continue this movement as best as we can. Our three-day university strike will continue till March 28, following which we will protest outside the UGC office again. There is an important meeting of its members, where we have to make our voices heard,” she said.
The students also blame the police for provoking such situations. Notably, the university strike remains to stay in place till the 28th of March. As per the UGC Gazette notice 2016, there has been a massive seat cutter students, teachers and guides in almost every department in JNU. While some department have three seats others have none.
