Gash deepens, face-off hits JNU students, police
New Delhi: Students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, who marched from Mandi House to Shastri Bhawan voicing their demands of sacking V-C Jagadesh Kumar and roll back of the hostel fee hike, had a face-off with the Delhi Police and were stopped from marching towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday evening.
As calls for his resignation grew louder, a meeting between members of the JNU Students' Union and officials of the Ministry of Human Resource Development over the JNU attacks and the fee-hike ended in a deadlock with injured JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh categorically stating that there would be no compromise on the demand for the removal of the varsity's V-C, over what the students called "his complicity" in the Sunday evening attacks inside the campus.
Following the failed talks with the ministry, the students who had marched there decided to take it forward towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan, when they were stopped on their way by Delhi Police near Janpath. According to some, women students were detained by the police after 6 pm, which is not allowed. Police used loud hailers to get the protesters to disperse but later resorted to mild lathicharge to clear the area.
The Delhi Police said the area was calm until the delegation from JNU met with officials of the MHRD. However, they claimed that one student leader called for people to march towards Rashtrapati Bhawan, which was "stopping traffic on Rajendra Prasad Road". "They were prevented from doing so. In the process, 11 people were detained and subsequently released," DCP (New Delhi) Eish Singhal said.
Meanwhile, as information surfaced, it appeared that Kumar had ignored the MHRD's advise to meet and engage with students and teachers over the fee-hike issue earlier and had deliberately shown little interest in attending the high-powered committee meetings over the issue, veteran BJP leader and former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi called for the V-C to be removed, remarking it was "shocking" that Kumar was "adamant" to not implement measures advised by the government on multiple occasions.
Moreover, the chants for Kumar's sacking spread across the country as students and teachers from institutes known for not indulging in political causes boycotted classes and joined the students of JNU in solidarity and in protest of the alleged inaction by the university's administration as a masked mob unleashed havoc in the campus.
Students and teachers from institutes such as the Delhi School of Economics (DCE) and other reputed colleges of the Delhi University joined the protest at Mandi House on Thursday afternoon and then marched to the HRD Ministry, talks with a delegation of nine students and teachers from JNU failed.
The march from Mandi House to the HRD Ministry was three kilometres long despite the Delhi Police preventing several students and teachers of JNU from leaving the campus to join the Mandi House demonstration.
